The company’s position on traditional marriage notwithstanding, threats to ban the company have drawn fire from editorial pages across the nation.

The Los Angeles Times condemned the decision, calling it far more troubling than Chick-fil-A’s support of traditional marriage.

“Public officials have a responsibility to carry out their ministerial tasks fairly and evenhandedly – and to uphold the principle of free speech – whether or not they like a business executive’s social or political stances,” the Times opined.

The Boston Globe wondered “which part of the First Amendment does Menino not understand? A business owner’s political or religious beliefs should not be a test for the worthiness of his or her application for a business license.

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin said “Boston’s Founding Fathers must be steaming in their graves.”

“When an elected public official wields the club of government against a Christian business in the name of “tolerance,” it’s not harmless kid stuff,” Malkin wrote. “It’s chilling.”

Meanwhile, thousands of Christians are mobilizing efforts to support Chick-fil-A – led by Fox News Channel host and former Ark. Governor Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee has declared August 1^st as Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.

“Let’s affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the Godly values we espouse by simply showing up and eating at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, August 1,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee said the company has come under attack from militant homosexuals and is being “smeared by vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry from the left.”

“The militant homosexual advocates have launched an all out assault on Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A,” he said. “The attempts to hurt or destroy Chick-fil-A are nothing short of economic bullying.”

Donald Wildmon, the founder of the American Family Association, is backing Huckabee’s efforts saying he hoped it would generate the largest one-day sales in the company’s history.