Posted on 03/09/2019 11:58:17 AM PST by robowombat
Dean resigns after college blocks Chick-fil-A
LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. (BP) -- A dean has resigned from Rider University because the school used Chick-fil-A's Christian views of LGBT lifestyles to block the restaurant from locating on campus.
The Lawrenceville, N.J., university's decision is an affront to her Christianity and violates her conscience, Cynthia Newman said in resigning as dean of the College of Business Administration, a post she had held since June 2017. "I am not willing to compromise my faith and Christian values and I will not be viewed as being in any way complicit when an affront is made to those values," Newman said. "I endeavor every day to do exactly what Chick-fil-A puts forward as its overarching corporate value: to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to me and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with me."
Newman's decision, publicized Tuesday (March 5) by higher education watchdog Campus Reform, stems from Rider's decision in November, 2018 to strike Chick-fil-A from a list of options surveying students' preference for a new campus restaurant.
"Chick-fil-A was removed as one of the options based on the company's record widely perceived to be in opposition to the LGBTQ+ community," the university said in a letter explaining its decision. Rider spokeswoman Kristine Brown, in Wednesday comments to CNN, said the decision was "not a judgment on religious values."
Chick-fil-A did not respond to a Baptist Press inquiry by press time, but told CNN the restaurant is inclusive.
"We have no policy of discrimination against any group, and we do not have a political or social agenda," CNN quoted a Chick-fil-A representative. "More than 145,000 people from different backgrounds and beliefs represent the Chick-fil-A brand."
The LGBT community's disapproval of Chick-fil-A dates to 2012 comments by CEO Dan Cathy that he supports a biblical definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The development is the second time in recent weeks Chick-fil-A's biblical views of sexuality have been referenced in a disagreementinvolving a university.
On Feb. 12, an LGBT advocacy group called Chick-fil-A "homophobic" and objected when the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) invited a Chick-fil-A executive to speak at a leadership symposium. The USAFA upheld its invitation to Rodney Bullard, Chick-fil-A vice president of corporate social responsibility and executive director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation, citing the academy's goal of presenting a diversity of viewpoints.
At Rider, Newman decided to resign after a month of conversations with school officials did not resolve her concerns. The school refused to apologize, and gave campus leadership a list of talking points to use when the subject arose.
"It was at that point, when I got those talking points, that I realized I could not, in good conscience, adhere to those," Newman said in a Tuesday Campus Reform interview. "In the absence of the apology for the offense made to Christian values and other values ... those talking points were something I couldn't say in good conscience.
"The implication is people who adhere to values similar to Chick-fil-A's are not responsible citizens," Newman said. "I couldn't put myself in a situation where I would in any way seem complicit when an affront to my Christian values had been made."
Newman will remain on faculty as a marketing professor, she said in her resignation letter.
Rider, granted university status in 1994, describes itself as having "nearly 4,100 undergraduate and 1050 graduate students representing 85 countries, 41 states, and two US territories."
Diana Chandler is Baptist Press' general assignment writer/editor. BP reports on missions, ministry and witness advanced through the Cooperative Program and on news related to Southern Baptists’ concerns nationally and globally.
Cynthia Newman walks the talk
We shall defund this Stalinism very soon.
Outstanding! I hope she doesn’t suffer financially...but she probably knew that that was a possibility when she made the decision.And that makes her decision particularly courageous.
GOOD for her! *applause*
and also kudos to Chick-Fil-A...even in the most liberal and LGBT-popular cities like mine, their franchise is uber successful. Always long lines.
From the article: “disagreementinvolving”
WOW! Is that a new word?
To follow up after my silly remark I say good for her.
It’s “woke speak”. You must be White...
I’ve walked out of movies I paid 12 bucks for :)
But at my peak income at an investment bank...
I would have failed the test.
Not proud, but its true.
She’s an amazing lady.
“Chick-fil-A was removed as one of the options based on the company’s record widely perceived to be in opposition to the LGBTQ+ community,” the university said in a letter explaining its decision. Rider spokeswoman Kristine Brown, in Wednesday comments to CNN, said the decision was “not a judgment on religious values.”
Why is this happening?
The battle over homosexual marriage is over.
And the liberals won, whether some of us like it or not, the liberals won that one.
But, years later, why are we still punishing Chick Fil A over homosexual marriage and those issues?
The liberals should be joyful that we now have homosexual marriage.
Why the apparent need for revenge against someone who didn’t support homosexual marriage?
And it’s worth pointing out, that Chick Fil A never has discriminated against a homosexual or LGBT person. The marriage thing was the personal opinion of the founder of the company, who had the audacity (to liberals) to think that marriage was a man and a woman.
so for having that audacity, liberals still feel the need to punish his business??? Why?
Cynthia Newman walks the talk
She chickened out.
“so for having that audacity, liberals still feel the need to punish his business??? Why?”
They are full of hate. It’s that simple.
PC Principal, I should have known...
Lawrenceville is about forty minutes south of me. It’s your classic upscale liberal elitist enclave of oh-so-better-than you snobs. Nice to see a win for our side.
“The battle over homosexual marriage is over.
And the liberals won, whether some of us like it or not, the liberals won that one.”
“Activists” can’t be gracious winners because they derive their oxygen from the fight. If they declare victory and stop fighting then they cease to exist. They are no longer culture warriors or SJW’s or whatever they view themselves as. Years ago when the gay marriage fight started a lawyer buddy told me, this isn’t about gay marriage. They will eventually win that and then move on to the next fight. Eventually, it will be about normalizing pedophilia. Eventually, it will move on to killing babies. It sounded ridiculous to me then, but he proved to be prophetic.
Once they have won the fight to kill babies, and in places, they have won it, what do they move on to next? There will be a next because these people must constantly demonstrate their superiority by...denouncing whatever is the norm.
I sometimes think about my dad who was a Democrat until Reagan. All through the sixties he and his buddies were working class, patriotic, pro-Americans. Now, those Democrats of the sixties would be far right Republicans. What happened? Well, a very well run communist insurgency seized the education system. No one alive in the fifties or sixties, if suddenly transported to this time, would recognize America today.
You must think the proper way for the thought Nazis.
But they (these illiberal "liberals") aren't, nor can they be by the very nature of the case. They have taken under their wing a movement that is driven by the movement of hell, and is at this very moment showing it by insisting that everything come under submission to its agenda. It's not the "marriage" -- it's everything that could be possibly inferred from "marriage" -- a ludicrous social upheaval. My prayer and hope is that this is quite Pyrrhic and ends up slamming them back into the closet.
Because free thinking individuals present a threat, FRiend.
Tatt
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