NATIONAL NEWS: NYC Mayor Calls for Boycott of Chick-fil-A

Plus: ISIS extremists execute another person accused of being gay, and actor Colton Hayes comes out.

Photo by iStock

Photo by iStock

Mayor Bill de Blaso does not endorse Chick-fil-A’s stance against same-sex marriage.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is urging residents to refrain from dining at Chick-fil-A as it plans to open a fourth location in the city this fall. The fast-food restaurant has been at the center of ongoing controversy since CEO Dan T. Cathy spoke out against same-sex marriage in 2012. “What the ownership of Chick-fil-A has said is wrong,” de Blasio said at a recent press conference. “I’m certainly not going to patronize them and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them … but they do have a legal right.” The company has not changed its position on the issue, but has instead defended how it treats its customers and employees. A spokesperson for the company responded to the recent backlash by telling the press, “The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect — regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.”

In international news, ISIS extremists execute a Syrian man based on accusations of “sodomy.”

On Saturday, a young Syrian man was thrown from a building rooftop in the city of Manbij by members of the Islamic State (ISIS) . This is the terrorist group’s second known victim in recent weeks. Activist Nasser Taljbini told the press that “the man was thrown brutally by ISIS masked members from the top of the building in the city” and then claimed “the corpse of the victim was transferred to an unknown destination.” It did not take long before new propaganda footage surfaced from the ISIS-associated media center that included footage of the man’s execution with graphic photos of the killing. As part of the extremist group’s reach in Iraq and Syria, various news outlets have reported that the ISIS-associated Sharia Court has “issued a decision to execute every gay man by throwing him from the top of a building.”

Teen Wolf actor Colton Hayes comes out as gay.

Colton Hayes, the 27-year-old actor best known for his reoccurring roles on MTV’s Teen Wolf and CW’s Arrow, has come out as gay. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hayes discusses says that “terminal anxiety” is what prompted him to take a break from his acting career — much of which was compounded by allegations of a “secret gay past.” “I should have made a comment or a statement, but I just wasn’t ready,” he said. “But I felt like I was letting people down by not coming forward with the rest of what I should have said.” Since then, Hayes says he has checked into rehab for anxiety and was frequently in the hospital over the next three months. “People want you to be that GQ image that you put out, but people don’t realize what it’s like to act 24 hours a day. I’d go home and I was still acting,” he said. In the interview, he claims he’s in a positive place with good health enough to consider returning to his role in Arrow.