I heard the sound bite. Nothing hateful about it, and nothing about gay marriage.
I am confident that Mr. Cathy will handle this the same way classic southerners handle any kind of Yankee crap. The worst thing you can do to a New England uppity elite is to ignore them and then laugh at them when they insist on being payed attention to.
Funny thing is John Sununu has this figured out when he goes one-on-one with Mrs. Alan Greenspan (aka Andrea Mitchell).