Amid PR crisis, top Chick-fil-A publicist dies

The Midland, GA-based fast food chain Chick-fil-A has been in the middle of a public relations firestorm over homophobic comments by its CEO. Today, the company's chief spokesman Don Perry died unexpectedly. Various news outlets are reporting the cause of death as a heart attack, citing Ross Cathy, owner of the fast food chain and family member of company CEO, Dan Cathy, as a source. The company's CEO has long made his conservative, non-gay-friendly political positions known, but recent remarks against gay marriage sparked widespread protest. The company is now being sued by a former employee (PDF) over allegations of gender discrimination.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr

That’s sad. I hope people remember it was his boss that is the bigot and tyrant not the recently deceased. Probably.
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  Seeing a lot of meanness out there in response to this news about a fellow human being’s death. Chickenfreude.
  - RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr
    
    Yeah, its gonna keep flowing methinks.
    
    Also, unrelated yet important:
    
    Chickenfreude? This is all i could find. Looks tasty ….
    
    http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4113/5080515195_60b9fa0fe2_z.jpg
    
    BTW Xeni check your submissions I sent you a audio clip that can lower a persons heartrate just by listening to it. Its wierd and cool.
  - http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones
    
    …a fellow human being…
    
    He and his employer haven’t seemed particularly interested in fellowship with a lot of us.
    - EH
      
      Living your life by the actions of your enemy, even if in opposition, is what Nietzsche termed ‘ressentiment,’ the ruling principle of the lowest sort.
      - malindrome
        
        Indeed. In the words of John McCain, “This isn’t about who they are, it’s about who we are.”
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Every fellowship has its Boromir.
  - billstewart
    
    Speaking of Chickenfreude, the Chick-fil-A Cows Campaign, with pictures of cows holding signs saying “Eat Mor Chikin”, fits right in there.
http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe

Way to go, gay people. You killed someone.
- franko
  
  hey, they started it.
  - http://www.facebook.com/joel.emmett Joel Emmett
    
    Hand of God?
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      Was going to say, a religious fanatic would have to see this as a sign…….
      - Donald Petersen
        
        While not exactly a religious fanatic, my mother has always had the habit, upon viewing some small bit of cosmic justice being visited upon one of her wayward offspring, of saying half-jokingly, “God got ya, didn’t He?”
      - Culturedropout
        
        Yeah – my friend’s freaky parents decided it was a sign from god when the local porn and adult toy shop burned to the ground. His schedule must be backed way up, though, because it took him 20 years to get around to it…
      - Donald Petersen
        
        Right around the week it was scheduled to open, the statue of Moroni atop the eastern spire of San Diego’s Mormon Temple was struck by lightning. Nobody really makes much of that, though. Being the highest, shiniest point of a tall building often provokes such celestial wrath.
bo1n6bo1n6

One too many fried chickens?
- http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
  
  You don’t think they paid him in cash do you?
.

Bastardizing my favorite word.. Excellent!
CSBD

If he did not believe in the cause but supported it anyway is that just following orders?

There is a reason (many actually) that I don’t work for the westburough baptist church.
- RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr
  
  Did you have a chance to work for them? That would be a crazy story we’d all like to hear!
awesomerobot

I really hope Chick-fil-A doesn’t spin this as reasoning for people to chill out with the anti-Chick-fil-A stuff.
Gerald Mander

God hates flacks.
- theophrastvs
  
  so much for every biblical prophet ..?
  - Gerald Mander
    
    Personally, I don’t think of being nailed to a crossbeam as an indicator of great fondness.
- bardfinn
  
  Matthew, chapter 6, verse 5.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001443259034 David Davion

You can otherwise work for a corporation filled to the brim with competent, wonderful people. Meanwhile the guy at the top is a complete jack***. I don’t really see how Chick-fil-A is any different than any other corporation out there.

Example: I once had to help the Chief Technology Officer, at a fortune 25 company, get a 32 network printer working on his 64 bit windows 7 machine. A machine that he insisted he get before the whole rest of the company, because he was privileged, and despite being CTO, he had a complete lack of understanding that being first also meant being a lab rat.

But… why are we all OK with this?
- Navin_Johnson
  
  I don’t really see how Chick-fil-A is any different than any other corporation out there.
  
  Apart from the funneling of profits to hate groups?
- bardfinn
  
  Matthew, Chapter 6, Verse 24:
  No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
  
  6:1
  Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
  - Culturedropout
    
    Charlton Heston, SG 1973:
    “SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! IT’S PEOPLE!!!”
bbonyx

God Hates Fag Haters!

And lo, he smote thee!
- bardfinn
  
  Matthew, Chapter 6, verse 5
  And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
  - Gerald Mander
    
    Seriously, dude, how many times are you gonna sneeze this quote over the comments section?
    - http://twitter.com/trempls tré
      
      As many times as it’s appropriate, I’d imagine. Which, both in this case and in general, number many.
      - Gerald Mander
        
        Yeah, BoingBoing is the place *I’d* go to thump my bible.
  - billstewart
    
    As somebody whose religious background was probably fairly similar to Dan Cathy’s, this always bothered me about Chick-Fil-A.
http://twitter.com/dohandigan Dennis O’Handigan

The Westboro protest at this funeral is going to be sooooo confusing.
http://twitter.com/thesilverspiral Naya Aerodiode

I bet he got force-choked by Vader.
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

Sigh. Here’s the imaginary scenario that is totally my own opinion and is likely not true, but makes a good fictional story anyhow:

CEO Dan Cathy: Don, this is a PR disaster. You have to fix it.

Don Perry: You said something incredibly vulgar and hateful and now *I* have to fix it? How about you apologize publicly?

Cathy: No, I’m not going to apologize for what I said. I’m a Type A, and I have to be right. Fix it.

Perry: But you’re the one who said–

Cathy: Fix it or you’re fired.

Perry: But I can’t–

Cathy: I don’t care about your problems. Fix it or you’re fired, and I’ll make sure you never work again.

Perry: *gasp* *dies*

Cathy: Don? Don? Christ, you can’t get good help nowadays. Sheila? Get me HR. I used up another PR thing, I need a new one.
RedShirt77

Probably the most stressful week in his entire life, a PR scandal threatens the company…
He shoudl of resigned before it killed him.
http://twitter.com/TheRedMonk01 Red Monk

What one of you wrote his name on a Death Note?
http://twitter.com/Moriash Nathan

Sigh. The second worst part about this debacle (we all know the first, of course) is that, thanks to the online coverage, I’ve been craving their chicken sandwiches and waffle fries for a solid week now, and can’t in good conscience stop in for some. I can’t be the only one who has had this problem.
- Donald Petersen
  
  If you’re near Los Angeles, swing into your local Roscoe’s for some yummy chicken & waffles. I recommend the Carol C Special.
  
  Otherwise… road trip to L.A.!
- http://redesigned.com redesigned
  
  there are much better places to get fries and chicken, imho.
- billstewart
  
  Their sandwiches have dead animals in them. No thanks.
  
  And lots of people make good fries. For instance, my local Prefab-Irish-Pub not only has good fries, but serves good beer, which I expect Chick-fil-A doesn’t.
- Gerald Mander
  
  I feel absolutely wretched for saying this, but the McDonald’s Southern Chicken Sandwich is a reasonable substitute.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness
    
    I think Whataburger has a pretty good chicken sandwich too. I’ve never had one because the #1 Whatameal add cheese and bacon is just too tempting. And Whataburger is open 24/7 for all the drunks and shift workers. If you are in the South, you can tell if you are in a safe place if there are more Whataburgers than Chick-Fil-As
    - MTBooks
      
      You should get the number 5. It already has bacon and cheese.
  - LikesTurtles
    
    It’s an ok substitute but suffers from a couple of problems, almost all due to the way McDonald’s cuts corners everywhere they can. The chicken breast has obviously been injected with liquid to plump it up. It’s way too wet when you bite in to it. Also many of the patties are made up of multiple chicken parts stuck together so it falls apart along lines you didn’t make with your teeth. Lastly the bun tends to be a bit stale though that’s probably location dependent. It’s by no means a terrible sandwich but is noticeably inferior to the one at Chick-fil-a.
    
    I saw the YouTube video for the Chick-fil-gay sandwich and it doesn’t look that hard to make. Probably will be better than McDonald’s so certainly not as quick and easy to obtain.
- http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
  
  Learn to make your own. Trust me, I know that sounds like a dismissive answer, but good fried boneless chicken is dead easy, especially if you can spring for a proper modern deep-fryer! We have started having queer-friendly chicken nights since the boycott and it’s been fun!
http://twitter.com/Noddy93 Noddy Ninetythree

Nobody… but nobody FUCKS WITH THE MUPPETS!!!
http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

tl;dr: I am perhaps an old man.

Okay, granted, I get old, I get old, I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

But the last time I checked, you could only get Chik-fil-A at the mall, somewhere between Cinnabon and Sbarro’s. I suppose it’s possible that sometime between now and the last time I went mall-shopping, Chick-fil-A opened franchises outside malls where people could pick up a sandwich or a bucket of takeout without having to buy overpriced goods at the anchor store or Radio Shack, but when did this happen?

Around here, you can get KFC, Popeyes, and local chicken (buy local chicken), but it’s not like Chik-fil-A is something that regular people are going to eat unless they spend 4-5- hours at an enclosed mall.

Unless I’m wrong, y’all could render Chik-fil-A irrelevant by Not Eating at the Fucking Mall.

I like specialty goods as much as the next guy, but given the choice between an Internet retailer and Spencer Gifts, I’m staying the fuck away from the mall.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/FJ7A6UOKYIBRD6Y6VSI2RQW4SI jeff
  
  its anonymous pussies like these that ” stand up to the man” that make me ill. Although it does bring an evil grin to my pinky laden mouth that the mere thought of a dead fleshsammich….even though it benn THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF FLESHSEATIN Smmicheatin that got us here. just sayin. yall go about yer bizness.
- penguinchris
  
  Your mall rant is funny but irrelevant. I’ve never seen a Chick-fil-A at a mall. They’re full-size fast food restaurants. Certainly, it depends on where you live, but they are not known as a food court chain (like, say, the detestable Sbarro).
  - http://twitter.com/Noddy93 Noddy Ninetythree
    
    30 years ago most of them were in malls. I didn’t see a stand alone chick-a-fil until i moved to knoxville in ’93 and I thought it was odd. these days in Waco there is one of each.
alamode123

Any truth to the rumours that Abby Farle is his replacement?
snagglepuss

Who knows ? Maybe Perry died of shame. A lifetime of lying and distorting realities as the PR director of a fast-food franchise could do that to a man of morals…

Having never heard him speak, I can give him the benefit of the doubt – As opposed to his boss, who clearly enjoys being an asshole.
oasisob1

This sucks. I have always hated bigotry, but I really love that chicken!
Boundegar

I disagree, that comment is absolutely homophobic. Furthermore, it’s hardly his first offense. The corporation has a history of funding anti-gay causes and politicians.

It’s nice you found a dictionary that supports your point of view. But it doesn’t make discrimination go away.
Boundegar

I disagree, that comment is absolutely homophobic. Furthermore, it’s hardly his first offense. The corporation has a history of funding anti-gay causes and politicians.

It’s nice you found a dictionary that supports your point of view. But it doesn’t make discrimination go away.
Navin_Johnson

o.t.i.o.
http://redesigned.com redesigned

they seemed pretty confused with their theophobic non-point…being against some a-holes homophobic stance isn’t being against all religions, or even the religion of the a-holes, or even the a-holes themselves, just against their homophobic stance.

looks like their ridiculous comment was just removed. good riddance.