Dozens participate in Mass. 'Chick-fil-A' kiss-in

BOSTON (AP) —About a dozen members of Boston-area gay rights groups staged a kiss-in at the food court at the Burlington mall Friday.

Members of Impact Massachusetts and Get Equal Massachusetts participated in a nationwide kiss-in demonstration against Chick-fil-A restaurants.

Extra mall security and police officers were on hand at the food court. After about 15 minutes mall security escorted the group outside. There were no arrests.

Gay rights activists were kissing at Chick-fil-A stores across the country, just days after the company set a sales record when customers flocked to the restaurants to show support for the fast-food chain president's opposition to gay marriage.

Meanwhile, police were investigating graffiti at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Southern California. The graffiti on the side of a restaurant in Torrance said "Tastes like hate" and had a picture of a cow. No one has been arrested.

The flap began last month when Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy told a religious publication that the company backed "the biblical definition of a family" and later said: "''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.'"

The statement infuriated gay marriage supporters, who planned the so-called kiss-in protests. To counter that demonstration, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister and Fox News talk show host, declared Wednesday a Chick-fil-A appreciation day.

The Cathy family has never hid its Southern Baptist faith, even closing its restaurants on Sundays.

Julie Romano, an organizer at the Decatur, Ga., store, just outside Atlanta, and opposes Cathy's stance, said she thinks the company president "is operating with cafeteria-style religion and a lot of people, extremist like him are, they pick and choose what it is they want to believe."

"As my sign said, Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. And Christianity is about loving people."

Cox Media Group