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1:05
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
1:14
All right guys, before we get into this, I just want to wish you all a very, very happy Thanksgiving.
1:17
If you were listening to this on time, happy Thanksgiving 2019. Here's the thing is everything's
1:22
giving that I've done this podcast. I think this is the second or third in a row. I think about
1:26
trying to do something unique using the Thanksgiving theme and talking about the settlers and the
1:31
Indians and all the different things that are there in, but there's a lot of other podcasts that do
1:35
that. I'm not going to even try. I am just throwing in the towel before I even try to do
1:41
something unique with Thanksgiving. If you listen to just about any other podcast, you're going to
1:44
find somebody that's doing something cool about Thanksgiving and the history of it and all those
1:48
different things. I'm going to leave that to them. But before we get into today's content,
1:52
I just want to thank everybody for their tremendously positive feedback for episode 104 of this
1:57
podcast called your Foxhole. That is a podcast episode that has really struck a chord with a lot
2:02
of people. I've gotten a lot of emails, a lot of texts, a lot of people that are just reaching out
2:07
and they're wanting a little bit more information about a foxhole. I went fairly deep and I talked
2:12
about a lot of different details in that podcast. But the thing about it is every now and then,
2:17
I'll spend a lot of time on a podcast. I'll put it out there and then no one really talks about it.
2:21
So it's like, it's really, really cool to me or it's a really, really good concept to me.
2:26
But then I give it to you guys and you're like, yeah, it's fine. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Kyle.
2:29
And then you just kind of move on with your life. But with this one, I spent a lot of time
2:33
on the your Foxhole podcast. And I did kind of push it back a little bit. There were some things
2:37
that came up in the news that the Kanye West album came out. And so I kind of pushed this
2:40
episode back, push it back, push it back. And then I just released it because it can basically
2:44
be released any time without a whole lot of context. But I'm, I've just been astonished with,
2:48
with y'all's overall feedback to it. And guys, if you've got feedback on that episode or really
2:53
any other episode, please let me know. This is how I'm going to continue to put out content that is
2:57
of relevance to you. Because I want to make sure that it kind of meets my standards for what I want
3:02
to talk about and get out there to you. But then in addition to that, I don't want to talk about
3:05
things that y'all don't care about. I want to talk about things that are going to make you better.
3:09
I want to talk about things that are going to make your community better. And this is,
3:12
this is a big thing for y'all is having a foxhole, having a group of guys that you can depend on.
3:16
I just got an email from a guy. I don't have permission to share it quite yet. That's not
3:19
why I'm sharing it right now. But he was talking about how he's got a lot of 10 o'clock guys in his
3:24
life. And you know, when I first read, I was like, I don't really know what that means. But a little
3:27
bit later in the email, he explains it. He's got a lot of guys in his life that he could call
3:32
and ask for help until about 10 p.m. After that, he doesn't really have a whole lot of guys,
3:38
right? He doesn't have a 2 a.m. guy, right? And these are his words. I don't really have a 2 a.m.
3:42
guy. I don't have a 3 a.m. guy. And so for that type of a scenario, a lot of people kind of have
3:47
words around that now they're they're talking about their foxhole and I'll even talk about
3:50
guys in my foxhole. There's a couple of guys that have listened to my episode and they're like,
3:53
wait a minute, Kyle, like you said I was in your foxhole. But then whenever I looked at the things
3:58
that you said in the episode and I went down the list, I was like, man, I don't, I don't know if I
4:02
check any of those boxes. And it's led to some really productive conversations with these guys.
4:07
You know, productive conversations about this is why I included you in my foxhole.
4:11
This is why even though you don't click that particular box, why still consider you a member
4:15
of it, right? But then there's other guys that have made substantive life changes just in that
4:19
little time period because they're like, Oh, crap, like I'm not just existing in this life,
4:24
just kind of floating around, bumping up against other people like there are people that are looking
4:29
at my life and looking at their relationship with me and their friendship with me in a different
4:33
light. They're thinking about it with different terminology and they're thinking about it with
4:37
this deeper level of depth than what I was even aware of. And so I'm going to start taking this
4:42
seriously. And so again, like I said, I went on a little bit farther than I thought I would
4:46
talking about that podcast, but I'm just ecstatic that you guys liked the information. I'm just
4:51
ecstatic that you've been able to apply it. And guys, if there's anything that I can do to assist
4:55
with any of that in the future, please, please let me know. But today, let's go ahead and get into
4:59
today's content. This episode is called Chick-fil-A is chicken, because they're chicken. So here's
5:05
a deal. There was an article that came out on November the 18th. And it came, it was an exclusive
5:11
with BizNow, that's B-I-S N-O-W BizNow. And the article was entitled exclusive Chick-fil-A to stop
5:17
donations to charities with anti LGBT views. Okay. So I did not see the article before I saw a lot
5:23
of other people talking about it. And certainly by the time this podcast gets to you, I'm sure you've
5:27
at least heard about this. But I want to go ahead and read to you the first section of this article,
5:31
just it's like the first third or first half of this article, because this will kind of give you
5:34
the context of what we're going to be talking about today. So I'm reading directly from the
5:37
BizNow article, Chick-fil-A to stop donations to charities with anti LGBT views. Here we go.
5:42
As Chick-fil-A expands globally and into more liberal parts of the United States,
5:47
the chicken chain plans to change which charities it donates to after years of bad press and protests
5:52
from the LGBT community. Beginning next year, Chick-fil-A will move away from its current
5:56
philanthropic structure. BizNow has learned. After donating to more than 300 charitable
6:00
organizations this year, the Atlanta-based fast food chain will instead focus on three
6:04
initiatives with one accompanying charity, each education, homelessness, and hunger.
6:10
There's no question we know that as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are,
6:14
Chick-fil-A president and chief operating officer Tim Tassapullo said in an interview with BizNow.
6:19
There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear
6:23
about our message. The new initiative will no longer include donating to organizations like
6:29
the Salvation Army, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home,
6:33
Chick-fil-A says, all of which sparked criticism from the past from LGBT community from the LGBT
6:38
community due to the organization's stances on homosexuality. The move comes after several
6:43
U.S. airports rejected the company from concessions deals earlier this year. More recently,
6:48
the landlord of the first Chick-fil-A in the U.K. announced eight days into its lease the pop-up
6:53
venue would not be welcome to extend, all because of the company's perceived anti-LGBT stance.
6:58
The company is also months from operating its first location in Boston, where the late mayor
7:03
Thomas Menino pledged to ban the company from opening within city limits after Chick-fil-A CEO
7:08
Dan Cathy voiced his opposition to gay marriage in 2012. Starting next year, the Chick-fil-A
7:13
Foundation plans to give $9 million to organizations like Junior Achievement USA to support education,
7:19
Covenant House International to fight homelessness, and community food banks for its hunger initiative
7:23
in each city where the chain operates. The company intends to dedicate $25,000 to a local food bank
7:28
each time it opens a new location. "This provides more focus and more clarity," Tassapullo said.
7:34
"We think education, hunger, and homelessness are critical issues in communities where we do
7:39
business in the U.S." So there's obviously more to that article. It gets some into some
7:44
of the history and some of the things that they've done, some other things that they've done within
7:47
the charitable sphere and all those different things, but there's been a lot of reaction to
7:52
this news, right? And there's a lot of reaction in a lot of different ways. And before we get into
7:56
too many of those different reactions, there's several interesting notes that I want to bring
8:01
to your attention just from that beginning part of that article. Again, that's just like the first
8:04
half of the article. So here's a few of the notes that I kind of picked out as I was reading through
8:08
and they just caught me a little bit of skew. The first is just the title, Chick-fil-A to stop
8:13
donations to charities with anti-LGBT views, okay? So according to a lot of people, the Salvation Army,
8:22
the FCA, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home, they're anti-LGBT.
8:29
So basically what they're saying is that anti-LGBT is not something that we can have,
8:37
not something that we can support, but in modern times and modern vernacular, if you hold a Christian
8:44
doctrine and Christian teaching, which elements of the Salvation Army, the FCA and the Paul Anderson
8:49
Youth Home do, then you are via fiat anti-LGBT. So that's what we're learning just from the title.
8:57
So even in the title, you're already getting these little hints as to where the direction of
9:02
all this that's going, right? Just from the title. The next interesting note that I saw is that
9:07
this views, views that Chick-fil-A is hostile towards LGBT people, like if you have that view,
9:13
that's typically coming from the LGBT activists, because you see the word hostility use or violence
9:21
or something like that. These are LGBT activists that are saying that about Chick-fil-A, but these
9:27
LGBT activists, they actually have a stake in their being hostilities, do they not? Because they
9:32
have nothing to scream about if they can't point at somebody and be like, ah, they're anti-LGBT, right?
9:38
Which is interesting to me, because when you talk to people that are actually in one of those
9:42
letter categories, LGBT or T, they don't like being lumped in together. You've heard comedians
9:48
talk about this, but if you know someone that's in that type of thing, they don't think that they
9:51
should all be grouped into the same category, that they don't all necessarily agree with how the
9:56
others act, they don't all necessarily agree with how these people approach things. But the thing
10:00
that's interesting is that just about everybody that's coming out against Chick-fil-A or has for
10:06
the last several years, these are people that have a stake in the outcome. Another interesting
10:11
thing is this is, so this just really caught me kind of funny. It's that, okay, they're telling
10:16
us that they're going to focus more on education, homelessness, and hunger. And Chick-fil-A is going
10:23
to do that, apparently, by stopping donations to organizations that help with education,
10:30
homelessness, and hunger. Now, what you might be thinking is, oh, they're just streamlining, Kyle.
10:36
They were giving money to 300 different organizations last year. Now, they're just going to put all
10:40
their money into these three things, education, homelessness, and hunger. But the thing about that
10:44
is, that's not terribly specific. I would agree that those are three of the things that are the
10:49
biggest blights on any society. If you don't have adequate education, if you've got a homelessness
10:54
issue, if there's hunger, it's kind of hard to really build anything as a society if your people
10:59
are hungry. I'm not really talking trash about the things that they've decided to go towards.
11:03
But the idea that they're going to do that by not giving to organizations that do those specific
11:08
things is a little bit dubious to me. So the Salvation Army specifically, that is an organization
11:14
that has a tremendously long record of being able to help people, right? And so instead of donating
11:19
to them, they're going to be donating to other charities. And I'm not saying anything bad about
11:22
junior achievement or any of the other charities. I'm sure those charities are fine or just as good
11:27
as any other charity. But it's interesting that they're stopping giving money to those organizations
11:32
that are explicitly doing the things that they say they're wanting to focus on now.
11:36
Another thing I thought that was a little bit interesting is I thought about that UK landlord,
11:41
right? So this landlord that, you know, eight days into this pop-up shop, they all of a sudden
11:45
come out and they're like, whoa, we just can't have Chick-fil-A stay here. There's really only one
11:50
of two potentials about what happened in that situation. The first is that it was a farce from
11:55
the beginning that that shop in the UK was never supposed to work out, that it was a setup from
12:00
the beginning, right? That this is just an entity that is just doing their best to virtue signal or
12:06
something like that. Like, like, who knows? I'm gonna say that that's not terribly likely, though,
12:10
because that's just, that's a really expensive thing to do to help to set up a restaurant in your
12:16
area or in your building only to prove a political point. I don't know that that's necessarily likely,
12:21
but it could happen. The second potential is that he, she, they whoever owns the building,
12:26
they're just cowards, right? They got a little bit of bad press. They had a few friends that maybe
12:32
wouldn't return their texts as quickly or at all, because they would dare to have a business
12:38
come into their building to do business for the community. Now, I would say that that's probably
12:43
likely that these people just kind of coward. And I know that in the UK, there were people that
12:49
were picketing outside of this Chick-fil-A and all those types of things. But I know that these
12:53
people don't have jobs, these people that are standing outside with signs, but eventually they
12:56
will go away when they realize that you're not going to go anywhere, that you're not going to
13:00
change what you're going to do because they're screaming. And you know, they're holding up signs
13:04
where half the words are misspelled. That that's not really something that's that they're going to
13:08
stick with, right? Like, it doesn't matter how much steel you have in you, like, you're just not
13:12
going to do that after a certain degree. And the last thing I wanted to point out from that little
13:17
bit of that article is that this is just the ultimate virtue signaling and an example of the
13:22
cancel culture, specifically the Boston mayor, who wants to band the sale of chicken sandwiches
13:27
in Boston because of the words of a CEO spoke seven years ago, right? He wants to ban Chick-fil-A
13:34
in their entire restaurant because, oh, the CEO said something in public that I disagreed with
13:39
seven years ago. Oh, gosh, it's just so woke of you, right? Oh, my gosh, that's great. And I'm sure
13:44
the people of Boston are just like, yeah, man, we were so worried about the violence that would
13:50
be brought to our community. Chick-fil-A brought their specific brand of chicken sandwiches with
13:54
pickles, which is gross, by the way, leave the pickles off my sandwich. But that was going to be
13:59
like some sort of like face melting, you know, other worldly type of thing that Chick-fil-A is
14:04
going to be in Boston. Is that what? Of all the things that you could fight, of all the things that
14:10
you could try and change from hit the mayoral house. That's the thing you were concerned about.
14:15
We don't want bigoted chicken in our city. Gosh, it's just, he's so tough. He's such a tough guy,
14:21
like, ah, we won't have them in here. But the thing that's interesting about this topic and I,
14:25
you know, I kind of remembering a little bit late into the story, there's some of you listening to
14:29
this right now that maybe you don't live in the United States. I know there's a lot of guys that
14:31
listen to this that aren't in the US and maybe you don't kind of know where this whole Chick-fil-A
14:35
drama stems from maybe you've never even heard of Chick-fil-A. But I wanted to kind of give you a
14:39
little bit of context as to when this whole thing started, when this whole Chick-fil-A is anti-LGBT
14:44
thing started. And it really started with a, with some public comments that the president at the
14:50
time and COO of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy, said on the Ken Coleman show. So this was a show where it was
14:56
released on June 16th of 2012. So over seven years ago, but I want to actually play for you the
15:03
clip from that interview. The audio is not great. Um, there's just not really great audio. I can,
15:08
I can't exactly understand why there's not better audio of this. But if you're listening to this at
15:12
two times speed or something like that, you might slow it down so you can actually hear it a little
15:16
bit. But it's just a couple of few minutes there's something like that clip from the Ken Coleman show.
15:20
So here it is. So you have a great leadership culture that you're specifically focused on within
15:26
Chick-fil-A as you look at the crisis of fatherlessness that we have in this country. I wanted you to
15:32
weigh in on that. I think it's important for us to hear from you. Uh, what can we be doing as a
15:37
country to be focusing on this growing problem? As an employer, first office from that perspective,
15:45
I see it's a real crisis in the sense that there is a certain amount of emotional DNA. There's physical
15:51
DNA, obviously, that comes from a, from, from the dad and also from the mom. But beyond that,
15:58
there's, there's some essential emotional DNA that God intended for us to get from a mother
16:06
and a dad that we're observed over life as children and gympics even growing up that we can only get
16:12
from our dad and we only get it from a mother and, and we're to get it in a home dynamic environment
16:18
where they're interrelating together to build the stability and the self-esteem that God wants
16:24
us to have to get through our teenage years. Now, when we don't have one side or the other,
16:28
you know, I just have to tell you, I don't think we're, we're just emotionally handicapped.
16:33
Doesn't mean we can't survive and have a happy life, but it means that we, we're going to have,
16:38
you know, some odd stacked against us and hopefully there could be somebody that
16:42
intervenes to help make that up for us. But to have so many people today that are growing up in,
16:49
in homes where they don't have a mom and dad, I'll tell you as an employer, it makes it that much
16:54
more difficult for us because we sometimes after actually have a parenting role as it relates to
17:00
society in general, I think we're inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist
17:07
at him and say, you know, we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. And I pray
17:13
God's mercy on our generation that has such a, a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would
17:20
build a destiny to try to redefine what marriage is all about. So those were the big comments that
17:27
kind of made all the kerfluffle with everybody got everybody up in a tizzy and you might be
17:31
thinking to yourself, was that it? Well, that's not exactly it that he said, but it's not exactly
17:35
like it gets worse. About a month later on July 2nd of the same year, 2012, the biblical recorder
17:41
published an interview where he was basically asked about his company, you know, about Chick-fil-A's
17:46
support of the traditional family. And you know, basically, he said, Yep, I'm guilty is charged.
17:51
And in the same interview, he went on to say this quote, we are very much supportive of the family,
17:55
the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family owned business, a family led business,
18:00
and we are married to our first wives. We give God, thanks for that. We want to do anything we
18:04
possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that. We intend to stay the
18:09
course. We know that it might not be popular with everybody, but thank the Lord, we live in a country
18:14
where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles. And also, Dan Kathy,
18:18
the day after the Supreme Court of the United States struck down section three of the Defense
18:23
of Marriage Act, he actually tweeted this. It said, "Sad day for our nation, founding fathers would
18:27
be ashamed of our generation to abandon wisdom of the ages regarding cornerstone of strong societies."
18:33
He later deleted the tweet, which here's a bro tip. Don't ever delete your tweets. Like,
18:38
just let this live with it. You know, think before you send something out there and just live with it.
18:42
But the thing about it is, is after listening to that clip, after hearing me read his quote from
18:47
the biblical record that he was interviewed, biblical recorder that he was interviewed in,
18:51
and reading that tweet, what exactly was wrong with his comments?
18:54
Because the thing that I neglected to see in those comments, and it's not as if I'm hiding
19:00
context from you guys. You know, I'm not going to do that to you. Not on this show. But what was
19:04
the issue? Like, where did he say that, you know what? Not only do I hate all LGBT people, we should
19:11
kill him. Like, where did he say that? Like, what was the context there that was so unpalatable?
19:19
Like, it was just undigestable that he would be able to say these things. Like, we can't let these
19:24
things stand. That was basically it. That's what created all of this hubbub, right? And the thing
19:30
that's interesting about that is it hasn't stopped since 2012. Every year, this kind of Chick-fil-A
19:35
appreciation day, I don't know what day of the year it is, but I know that at the time after all
19:38
this stuff went down, and all these people were basically picketing outside of Chick-fil-A, saying,
19:42
"Oh, what a hateful company. How dare they just support families?" They got to be inclusive of
19:46
everybody, blah, blah, all these different things. Mike Huckabee, who I believe at the time was the
19:50
governor of the state of Arkansas, he decided that he was going to do a Chick-fil-A appreciation
19:54
day, kind of like a counter protest. So like, "Hey, you want to sit there with your signs and yell? Fine.
19:58
We'll get cars, people that'll be like parked or they'll be in line all the way around the block
20:02
to support this company." And basically, the religious people and the people from the right
20:07
really came out to support this organization to say, "I'm in support of the typical marriage
20:11
or the typical family unit as well." Like, that's what we think is the best thing. That's what all
20:15
the statistics point to is what's best for a kid is to grow up in a mother and father household
20:20
where they love each other and it's their first marriage and all those different things. But the
20:24
thing about what Chick-fil-A is doing now is they seem to be trying to do a little bit of revisionist
20:29
history with some of these things. They seem to be trying to go a different direction. They're
20:33
trying to put a different flag in the ground. But what they think they're accomplishing with this
20:39
is not exactly what they are accomplishing with this move. And there's a lot of different ways
20:44
that I mean that. So, the first one that I came up with is like, they think that they're clearing
20:48
up their message, right? But actually, they're muddying the waters. So, that's what you hear
20:54
throughout everything that they're talking about in those short things by the current
20:58
COO of Chick-fil-A is that, "Oh, well, we're just clearing up our message." But as I just told you
21:02
from the beginning, it's like, "Okay, you want to support education, homelessness, and hunger
21:06
by not giving to organizations that help with those things." That's not clearing up your message
21:10
at all, right? You think that you're taking it down and you're making it more streamlined.
21:14
That's not actually what you're doing. Also, they think that they're muzzling the LGBT rage mob.
21:20
But actually, they will never be silenced. This group will never be silenced, okay? So, no matter
21:27
what you do, no matter what you say, no matter what organizations you say you're going to give to,
21:30
let's say that they weren't giving to the organizations that they specify. Let's say they were only going
21:34
to focus on three different charities and all of them were LGBT charities. Do you think that that's
21:38
going to silence these people? Like, you got to be smarter than that. Also, they think that they're
21:43
actively welcoming in everybody with open arms with this latest statement. But actually, what they're
21:49
doing is they're alienating the people that stood by them and made them one of the biggest restaurant
21:54
chains in the world so that they could quote-unquote be clear about who we are, right? So, that's the
21:59
thing that I know about a lot of people, because here's the thing, is during this whole thing in 2012,
22:04
like I was never really a frequenter of Chick-fil-A. Their food's fine. It is what it is. It's just a
22:08
fast food restaurant to me. I didn't think that they were, you know, on the cutting edge, you know,
22:12
fighting for my rights or anything like that. But there were people that like got up in arms that
22:16
anybody would challenge Chick-fil-A. And Chick-fil-A just, you know, they went, they went to the
22:22
stratosphere as a company because they just kind of stood up and said, no, we're defending the
22:26
traditional family. And there were droves of people that were behind them, right? And since then,
22:32
you know, if you've got a few options in the town, but Chick-fil-A's one of them,
22:35
this family goes to Chick-fil-A. You've got people like that. You've got families like that. We're
22:38
going to sort of support Chick-fil-A because they've got our interests at heart. And this
22:43
makes you turn, this is you turning your back on them. These are the people that were there for
22:48
you. These are the people that were taking pictures outside of Chick-fil-A and getting destroyed by
22:52
their super woke lefty friends on Facebook. But they don't care. They're like, is the chicken sandwich?
22:56
I like it. I like this company. I'm going to support them. And now you think, oh, we're going to welcome
23:01
everybody now. That's not exactly what you're doing. In addition to all that, they think that
23:06
they can just blend in with other companies now, right? Chick-fil-A with this, they think that their
23:11
personal beliefs can be separate from their businesses. But actually, that can't work if you're on the
23:16
Christian right. Because here's the thing, left-leaning companies or companies that are ran by left-leaning
23:22
people, they are being forced to engage with controversial ideas in public. And they have those
23:29
points of view be basically established as of the company. Like, we're a company that supports
23:34
this. Like Nike coming out with all the Colin Kaepernick stuff and like, they're basically putting
23:38
their flag in the ground saying, this is the company that we're going to be. Here are the issues that
23:42
we're going to talk about. You've got Dick's sporting goods saying they're not going to sell guns
23:45
anymore because that's going to make a difference. Like that, that's kind of what they do. And they're
23:49
considered brave, right? When they do this, when these lefty companies or companies that are ran
23:54
by lefties, when they do these things and make these public declarations, they are, oh my gosh,
23:58
all the blue checkmark people on Twitter, like, yay, you're so brave, it's so awesome. But the
24:02
thing is, is when someone on the Christian side of the aisle or on the right-leaning side of the
24:06
aisle or a company that is owned by right-leaning or Christian people, it's bigotry. How dare you
24:12
stand up for the traditional family? Why do you hate gay people? It's like, that's what you got?
24:17
For standing up for the statistical reality that when a kid grows up in a family with a present
24:24
father and a present mother, and they are biological to that child, that all of the benefits of that
24:29
go up significantly, like that's, that's bigotry now. Here's another thing that Chick-fil-A thinks
24:36
that they're doing. They think that this will lead to higher sales, right? And actually they might be,
24:42
they might be right, but they might not also not be right as well. The thing is, is in 2001,
24:49
okay? They became a billion dollar company. They had a billion dollars in sales that year, right?
24:54
In 2013, this was the year after all of this stuff that went down. This is on the heels of the
24:58
controversy. They passed five billion dollars in sales. In 2019, they eclipsed 10 and a half
25:07
billion dollars in sales, making them the third biggest restaurant chain, like fast food chain,
25:13
grossing, like they're only behind McDonald's and Starbucks. They're about, you know, half of what
25:17
Starbucks is in about a quarter of what McDonald's is, but they're in the top three. A lot of that
25:21
is because of what Dan Kathy said back in 2012. And so what they think now is like, okay, well,
25:28
if this company's going to continue to grow, we got to make sure that the people in Boston are
25:32
happy with us and the people in the UK are happy with us. But this might not work out for them,
25:37
because the thing is, is that you know about people that are, that are Christians or maybe
25:41
people that are on the right is like, just don't cross us. That's why I tell people a lot about my
25:45
personal personality is like, I'm going to be the best friend you could possibly have. I'm going to
25:49
be the most dedicated person to our friendship and all those different things until you cross me.
25:54
When you cross me, I'm done with you. There are seven billion people on this planet. And you're
26:00
just one of them. Okay, you're important. You're made in the image of God. You have the amago day,
26:04
but I don't have time for you anymore. I feel like a lot of people are going to feel
26:09
spurned by Chick-fil-A because of what they're doing here. I think they thought they could just
26:13
slide this in. No big deal. And maybe I'm off my rocker. Like I'm not exactly guessing one way or
26:18
another, but they think this will lead to higher sales. And I'm just not so sure. I'm not so convinced.
26:22
The other thing is that they think that this is brave. All these, you know, smarties in Atlanta
26:27
got around the table and said, you know, we're going to do this. This is brave. But in actuality,
26:30
this is cowardly. This is them succumbing to the rage mob, right? Because they also think that
26:37
they're culture warriors now, right? That that they can do this thing now. They can basically fold
26:42
to the LGBT rage mob. And that's going to be okay. And the thing about it is, is the actuality,
26:48
they're right. They think they're culture warriors and they are. And this is a separate
26:51
point and I won't go too far down this rabbit troll. But as sad as it is to admit this,
26:56
Chick-fil-A, a company that makes pretty good chicken sandwiches, there are modern day culture
27:01
warriors. Let's assume they didn't do this move. Let's assume that they didn't make these changes
27:05
since 2012, right? And certainly this year, let's say they didn't do any of those things.
27:09
They're the people that are out there saying we stand for the traditional family. But where are
27:15
the churches and pastors saying the same thing outside of their pulpits, outside of their sanctuaries?
27:22
Where are the mega church pastors that every time there's a big thing that comes up,
27:28
whether it's, you know, guns or racial relations or LGBT stuff or anything happening in government,
27:33
where are they at? They're typically hiding behind their iPad, doing their next TED talk with a few
27:40
Bible verses sprinkled in. That's, that's where our mega church pastors are typically. They're not,
27:45
they're not helping their flocks understand these things. And so you have a guy who is,
27:49
I think, second or third generation chicken dude that comes down and says, yeah, you know,
27:53
we're in defense of the family. And I know in recent interviews, he said that he is regretted,
27:59
you know, getting his company, you know, caught up and all that. But what he said from the beginning
28:03
was right is that the people at his company, they're committed to the traditional family,
28:07
not to the detriment of anybody else and not to the hatred of anybody else. When the Pulse
28:12
nightclub shooting happened down in Orlando, Chick-fil-A was there handing out food to victims,
28:18
right? Or people that were there in there that in the club that night. Remember that pulse was a
28:24
gay nightclub, right? There have been times when, you know, Chick-fil-A is famously closed on Sundays,
28:30
where they've opened their doors on Sundays to help hurricane victims, right? Like this is
28:34
a company that has a tremendous amount of heart, but they shouldn't be on the front lines fighting
28:39
these culture wars. It's because we have a bunch of effeminate pastors that don't want to make
28:44
anyone mad or, you know, [inaudible] off the people that are paying their salary. And so they're just
28:48
going to let a chicken sandwich company do it for them. But to switch gears just a little bit here,
28:52
the thing that might be interesting for some of you to know is that Chick-fil-A actually
28:57
caved on this issue a long time ago. Guys, as far back as 2012, Chick-fil-A had stopped donating
29:04
to groups that the LGBT rage mob had deemed hostile towards them. So this is not breaking
29:10
news, really, right? It might seem like it is, but if you've been paying attention to this story,
29:15
Chick-fil-A had already been doing this. You know, people, they expressed all of this,
29:21
this angst and, you know, oh, [inaudible], public shame for Chick-fil-A. And so they started acquiescing to
29:26
the rage mob back in 2012. This has been a slow bleed, right? Last week should not have been breaking
29:32
news to you. But guys, what this all comes down to, and this, this really shouldn't be a surprise
29:37
to you at all, this all comes down to money. Every last bit of this comes down to money and just
29:45
about everything on this planet, everything that is corrupt, everything that is sinful,
29:49
almost all of it comes down to money. Perhaps that's why money was talked about so much in
29:53
the news testament. When you, uh, look at your red letters there, money is mentioned quite a bit.
29:57
I mean, just go, go back to the article. We have the quote from the COO. There's no question we know
30:01
that as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are. There's a lot of articles
30:08
in newscast about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message. That's
30:12
the COO, right? Tim Tassapullos. That's the guy, right? What's he saying there? He's not basically
30:19
saying, oh, we had really unclear branding before this, and we were getting a lot of confusion about
30:24
our brand message. So we're going to be more clear about our brand message. No, no, no, no,
30:28
that's not what he said. The biggest thing is here is as we go into new markets, basically,
30:34
as we come out of the south, as we come out of the Midwest, as we go to more of the coastal areas
30:38
where we have our coastal elites and a lot of people that are lefties, we want as few people
30:42
outside holding up negative signs and, you know, posting about us on Facebook and Twitter as possible.
30:49
This is all about money. They've gone from, you know, in about less than 20 years, they've gone
30:54
from a $1 billion company to a $10.5 billion company when it comes to sales, and that they want to go.
30:59
They want to get to Starbucks level. They want $20 million a year in sales. They want to get to
31:03
McDonald's level. They want $40 million in sales, right? That's what they want. That's what this is
31:08
all about. They think they're going to accomplish that doing this, and I'm just not terribly convinced.
31:13
But guys, there is kind of a main point here. It's taking me a half hour to get there, but there
31:17
is a main point here, and that's you can't ever cave into the rage mob. You just cannot do it.
31:27
Because here's the thing is after this article came out, right, from Biz Now last week,
31:33
you would have expected a wave of forgiveness from the rage mob to Chick-fil-A, wouldn't you?
31:39
You would have expected some apologies for things said or actions done or, man, maybe I shouldn't have
31:45
held that sign outside your door. I'm so sorry. That was a little bit much. I'm glad my point got
31:50
across. You know, you would have expected some tweets from blue check mark people on Twitter,
31:55
praising the news, praising the move by Chick-fil-A to do these things. You know what we got instead?
32:00
Silence mainly from all these people with all this angst and all this anger and all this judgment
32:10
on Chick-fil-A. We got nothing. And when there wasn't silence, there was continued condemnation
32:18
for past sins, right? Now they wouldn't categorize them as sins, but that's exactly what they're doing.
32:25
Because the point is, is there's no forgiveness of sins from the rage mob. There will never be
32:32
forgiveness. There will never be grace. And so these companies that basically fall on their knees
32:41
and beg for forgiveness, it's like, have y'all not seen how this plays out? Because even when
32:46
you say you're sorry, you still get canceled, right? There's very few people that have made
32:51
it through the rage mob unscathed, right? Because if you do things that are deemed by them to be
32:57
so otherworldly, to be so abhorrent, you're never going to be able to be on the good side ever again.
33:03
And this is a lesson for us, guys. This all comes down to us in our individual lives because
33:08
most of the guys listening to this don't have a company that sells $10 billion worth of chicken
33:12
sandwiches a year, okay? The lesson for us is stick to your guns. Stick to your guns.
33:19
So I'm reminded of a Jordan Peterson quote. He said multiple times and I'm not going to quote
33:25
exactly. I'll just give you the gist of it. But Jordan Peterson every time he farts or sneezes,
33:29
basically it's, you know, it's in the news and oh my gosh, Jordan Peterson, he's all right because
33:32
he farted on stage or something like that. It's one of those deals. But what he says is any time
33:37
that he's caught up in some sort of a, you know, rage mob situation or some sort of a controversy.
33:42
He says, yeah, just wait a couple of weeks. They'll move on. They won't forget about it because,
33:48
again, there's no forgiveness or grace with those people, but they'll move on and you move on to
33:53
don't ever apologize. Now, the thing I would say to that quote is if you've done something wrong
33:59
that requires an apology, albeit a public apology, then do that, right? It's right to do that. But
34:05
if you say something, especially something that is grounded in Judeo Christian beliefs and ethics,
34:11
right? That is biblically based and people just don't like it and they demand your apology,
34:15
tell them to stick it in their ear or say nothing. Let them do their flaming, let them, you know,
34:22
leave the 10 paragraph response on your Facebook posts, let them do all those things, right?
34:26
Stick to your guns. Now, that is not licensed to be a [inaudible]. That is not licensed to be like,
34:33
Oh, you know what? I'm going to get in people's faces because Kyle said so he said stick to your
34:38
guns. That's not what I'm saying. But if you're in the right and you've got the Bible and you've
34:43
got you've got the spoken word of God backing you up, don't back down. But have a conversation
34:50
with people. Don't just argue at the person, you know, describe what you're saying and what you
34:56
believe to them. If they're a beer person, take them for a beer, if they're a breakfast person,
35:01
take them for some hash browns, but get them sat down and try to explain yourself to these people.
35:05
But don't feel the need to defend yourself that much. But do explain yourself. I think that's
35:11
helpful. Anytime that we can aid in conversation with these people and get people to actually
35:17
understand our belief system, you're giving another opportunity for these people to see the gospel
35:21
and see Christ. And so the thing is, is when you capitulate and whenever you you basically ask
35:27
for forgiveness and you do what Chick-fil-A is doing now, no one sees that as strong. Like,
35:32
like everybody who wants a flag to look to and most of us can't look at our effeminate pastors
35:36
and be like, yeah, I'm going to follow that guy. So people are following a chicken sandwich.
35:39
And so in your personal life and the things that you're doing, be the person that people can
35:46
attach themselves to, the person that they can anchor to, right? Because you're so
35:52
steely in your demeanor and the things that you're able to do. And the thing about it is, guys,
35:56
is you can't even be that guy if you don't have a good scriptural foundation and scriptural basis.
35:59
So make sure you're in the word. Make sure you're surrounded by guys that are also in the word.
36:05
And when some of these things come up, you know, I've talked about guys whenever they've got
36:08
new sex ed stuff in schools and they've got, you know, tranny story hour down at the library,
36:12
they got all these different things. Those are the times when you need to stick with stick to your
36:16
guns, because no one else is going to be the sheepdog in those situations. All right, guys,
36:21
before we let you go, we will do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry
36:25
and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience. And specifically, we would do that by providing
36:29
content that for just spiritual mental and physical toughness. So today, I've just got the article
36:33
for you for the Chick-fil-A business article. So it's Chick-fil-A to stop donations to charities
36:38
with anti LGBT views, because I want you guys to make sure that you read the rest of that. So you
36:41
can get the remainder of that context. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to the podcast.
36:45
We really do appreciate it. If you would, please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud,
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Spotify, or Google Play and refer your friends to listen and share this on social media. Guys,
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if we deserve a five star review, that is how this podcast is going to continue to grow. Please
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leave us five stars and a few sentences letting us know why you like the material. I'm currently
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booking speaking engagements for the entirety of 2020. So if you want me to come speak on your
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podcast to your men's group at your camp, whatever, hit me up info at undaunted.life. The email is
37:10
info@undaunted.life. The website is www.undaunted.life. You can follow us on Instagram or Twitter @undauntedlife or
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facebook.com/undauntedlife. Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app. Just search
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"undaunted life" under plans. And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing
37:26
us to use their entire music library for our content. The intro outro track on this podcast is their
37:31
song "King of Sorrow," which is off their latest record entitled "Phantom Anthem." The links to all
37:35
of this are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep cultivating manly
37:41
resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness, keep seeking the lion of Judah.
38:05
(dramatic music)