A second airport has now decided to ban Chick-fil-A because of “anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.” First, it was the San Antonio airport. Now, the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. In reality, the reason for the ban is Chick-fil-A is owned by Bible-believing Christians who donate money to fine Christian ministries. It’s that simple.

The trouble began in 2012 when Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy affirmed that marriage was the union of a man and a woman. In his words, he was “guilty as charged” for believing in affirming in traditional marriage.

The reaction, of course, was swift and severe: How dare he? Bigot! Homophobe! Hater! America must boycott this horrible place!

The Hateful Remarks

Read for yourself Cathy’s hateful remarks (but brace yourself first; these are really wicked):

We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family owned business, a family led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that … we know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.

What kind of heartless monster could utter such words? People of conscience should never darken the doors of this terrible franchise again — especially when Cathy said that America was shaking its fist at God in wanting to redefine marriage. Banish him!

But calls for a boycott resulted in counter-calls for a “buycott,” and this Christian-owned, Sunday-closed business continued to succeed.

Could it be that God is blessing these franchises, which are famous for providing the best customer service of any fast food restaurant in the country? (And obviously, people like the food, which as far as fast food chains go, may not be quite as unhealthy as some of the others.)

But the backlash was far from over.

Chick-Fil-A Bans and Boycotts

Students called for a Chick-fil-A ban on their campuses (even resulting in the resignation of a Christian dean who protested the ban).

New Yorkers were upset that one of these restaurants could open on their sacred turf. (For the record, that boycott didn’t go well either. As CBN reported, “NYC Boycott Bombs as Chick-fil-A Booms Despite the Protest of Its Christian, Family Values.”)

And now airports are saying no to this very popular restaurant. (As one who travels all the time, I can tell you that Chick-fil-A commonly has the longest — and fastest moving — lines of any of the airport restaurants.)

In response to the San Antonio ban, “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday he plans to investigate whether the San Antonio City Council violated the First Amendment when it banned Chick-fil-A from participating as a vendor at the city’s airport because of the restaurant’s support for Christian values.”

In Paxton’s own words, “The City of San Antonio’s decision to exclude Chick-fil-A based on the religious beliefs associated with the company and its owners is the opposite of tolerance. It’s discriminatory, and not only out of step with Texas values, but inconsistent with the Constitution and Texas law.”

As expressed by Texas governor Greg Abbot, “The ban has the stench of religious discrimination against Chick-fil-A.”

Indeed it does.

The Real Problem — Being Christian

In fact, what provoked the airport bans was the news that Chick-fil-A gave over $1.65 million “to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes [FCA], which writes in an online ‘Statement of Faith’ that it believes ‘marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman,’ and believes ‘sexual intimacy’ should only be expressed ‘within [that] context.’”

In other words, the FCA affirms what the Bible teachers and what all branches of Christianity have affirmed with virtual unanimity until recent decades.

The bottom line is that Chick-fil-A is being punished for being Christian. That’s it.

The company is not being targeted because it has gone on an anti-gay campaign. Nor is it being targeted for alleged discriminatory acts against LGBT’s, not one of which has been reported and verified.

No, this Christian business is being punished for being Christian as is, by extension, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Nothing more and nothing less. It’s time we face the facts.

Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand

I addressed this dangerous tendency most recently in my article on the “Silencing of the Lambs,” written earlier this month (March). But I could write about this just about every day of the week, as believers suffer discrimination in America because of their faith.

My advice to all is this: Don’t put your head in the sand. Don’t deny the seriousness of what’s happening. Don’t try to put a spin on it.

When Christian convictions intersect with certain parts of our society, the response will be ugly. And open. And intense. It will also reveal who the real bigots are. And this reminds me of a famous story in Church history.

The Romans used to call the early Christians “atheists” because they denied the ancestral deities and refused to call Caesar god. And as the Christians were being led to public slaughter, the crowds would chant, “Away with the atheists!”

But when the aged, saintly Polycarp was about to be burned at the stake, he waved his hand dismissively at the crowd and cried out, “Away with the atheists!”

That’s how I feel when I see the bigoted responses to Chick-fil-A. While I first and foremost want to see the critics come to know the Lord for themselves, if they refuse His grace and mercy, my response to them is, “Away with the bigots!”

As for Chick-fil-A, it will do just fine.