I'm not being cryptic for fun, but I don't think it's my place to name names. My guess is that at least one of them will come out in the next couple of years
The Chick Fil A guy was protecting his brand. The whole "we're great Christians because we close on Sundays" act is a huge part of their success.
I was shocked he didn't issue an apology and retraction immediately. I actually give him credit for that even if I think he's an idiot.
Oh, for sure, I wouldn't ask you to betray confidentiality. I was just noting that I will have an unwarranted curiosity on the matter.
I get that, but he didn't have to enter himself in the gay marriage debate if he didn't want to. I doubt anyone would stop eating there because he hasn't made a public denouncement of gay marriage.
It is, for better or worse, deemed newsworthy. Thus, I'm not sure you interest is really unwarranted.
Maybe, but the fact pretty much every location in the Bible Belt was packed out the door for the week after the announcement showed it certainly motivated their core customers.
That's how it should work. I still lean towards most GMs choosing a reasonable alternative in order to avoid any potential issues, however unlikely or trivial (a player tweets something homophobic/a high-profile player or group of players have issues and go to management, creating friction/coaching staff is over-the-line insensitive and you end up in a 60 Minutes exposé). I guess you can attribute a lot to fear of the unknown/inertia, but if there weren't tangible consequences, wouldn't this have happened sooner in practically any men's pro league?
“Should I really care?” one GM said. “Is it going to be that big a deal? Aren’t we beyond this?” “It’s not a shocking thing to me, and it won’t be to our organization,” another GM said. “You’ll have old-school guys on your team saying, ‘Are you kidding, putting this guy on our team?’ And you’ll have other guys say, ‘Who cares? I knew two gay guys who came out in college.’ ” “It’ll totally depend on your leadership,” the scout said. “A team with strong leadership at coach and in the locker room, like New England, I would imagine, would be okay. I could see Belichick say, ‘This is the way it is. There’s no story.’ And guys would just accept him. There’d be no choice. But without that strong leadership, I could see it being divisive, and I could see a team saying, ‘We don’t need this.’ ” “We talked about it this week,” the GM said. “First of all, we don’t think he’s a very good player. The reality is he’s an overrated football player in our estimation. Second: He’s going to have expectations about where he should be drafted, and I think he’ll be disappointed. He’s not going to get drafted where he thinks he should. The question you will ask yourself, knowing your team, is, ‘How will drafting him affect your locker room?’ And I am sorry to say where we are at this point in time, I think it’s going to affect most locker rooms. A lot of guys will be uncomfortable. Ten years from now, fine. But today, I think being openly gay is a factor in the locker room.” I asked this general manager: “Do you think he’ll be drafted?” “No,” he said. http://mmqb.si.com/2014/02/09/michael-sam-monday-morning-quarterback/?eref=sihp
“The big factor here is that the initial storm will come now, and not after he’s drafted, like maybe he was trying to hide it,” one GM said. “That’s a big factor in his favor. Very big.”
That's just essentially one GM putting out the old "our organization is great and enlightened but some others are cavemen" puffery you hear all the time. I wouldn't take much from it.
I don't think he even really made a denouncement. I thought his comments were more benign than they were made out to be.
he gave what $10 mil to anti gay marriage groups? just not making an apology is a denouncement in that situation.
Honestly, I never had a problem with his stance on gay marriage. It was no surprise as Cathy is a very religious man. The problem for me and I think the majority of gay folks were the charitable donations that went to SPLC designated hate groups. I believe Cathy and Chick-fil-A were to end those, though I have not looked into it recently.
I had exactly the same reaction. Spending that kind of money on something like that suggests more than just a normal religious objection.