Although I don't see this as a real fee speech issue and businesses should be able to make business decision, I agree with your point.
IMO, this is no different than that Mozilla guy losing his job for simply donating to CA Prop 8. I think some folks here are being a little hypocritical
There is a huge difference between the two in my opinion. The Mozilla guy donated his own money, privately - to a “non-PC” organization. The Chick-Fil-A idiot went out of his way to film and post a video in an effort to ridicule an innocent worker of a restaurant, based on his disagreement with the CEO’s beliefs. As others have already pointed out, this was incredibly bad judgement, which the business used as their rationale to excuse him.
“IMO, this is no different than that Mozilla guy losing his job for simply donating to CA Prop 8.”
There is a difference. The Mozilla exec simply made a political contribution, as millions of others did. It’s a perfectly normal activity.
This jerk berated and verbally abused a minimum wage employee who had no choice except to stand there and take it, because she was a captive audience. He also videotaped her and posted it to the internet, to try to embarass her, when she never did anything to him.
So on the one hand, a company punished someone for engaging in normal behavior that half the country might be guilty of, and on the other hand, a company rightly recognized a PR disaster if they continued to employ an abusive jackass.