Brooklynites want to eat more chicken — at a Brooklyn Chick-fil-A restaurant — according to a poll taken by this paper.
By a slim vote of 34 to 32, visitors to our website BrooklynDaily.com said they would welcome a Chick-fil-A in Southern Brooklyn.
The company, which already has one franchise on New York University’s campus, became a lightning rod of controversy after its owner, Dan Cathy, expressed his opposition to gay marriage last month.
“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’ ” Cathy said last month.
Those statements, along with Chick-fil-A’s links to organizations that support a traditional definition of marriage, sparked outrage among gay rights groups.
At franchises throughout the country, same-sex couples held ‘kiss-ins.’ Others organized boycotts of the chain.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn called for NYU to close its Chick-fil-A chain, drawing a retort from Mayor Bloomberg, who defended Cathy’s First Amendment grounds.
Russell Gallo, the head of Brooklyn’s Young Republicans and a candidate for the State Assembly seat currently held by Steve Cymbrowitz (D–Brighton Beach), said that Chick-fil-A would do well in neighborhoods like Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay.
“We would definitely welcome your business and the jobs and revenue it would create,” Russell wrote in his letter to Cathy, who is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. “I look forward to enjoying a Chick-fil-A Sandwich in Brooklyn sometime in the near future.”
