Erik S. Lesser/European Pressphoto Agency 
 
 Two days after hundreds of thousands of people packed Chick-fil-A restaurants to demonstrate their support for the fast-food chain’s position against gay rights, supporters of same-sex marriage staged what they called a “kiss-in” on Friday at locations across the country. 
 
 As part of National Same-Sex Kiss Day, more than 14,000 people had signed up for the event on Facebook, which encouraged couples to visit one of the restaurants and photograph themselves kissing. 
 
 While some shared their photos on Twitter and Facebook, others submitted them to a Tumblr page set up for the event. 
 
 In one photo on Tumblr, a young man is pictured with a woman. He said he took his mother to Chick-fil-A because his boyfriend was out of town. 
 
 While the kiss-ins were planned mostly for Friday night, there were some smaller protests and kiss-ins at restaurants earlier in the day. 
 
 In Decatur, Ga., about two dozen protesters, including families with small children, showed up at a Chick-fil-A at lunchtime, some with bags of McDonald’s food. 
 
 The restaurant did a steady business as the protesters stood outside, getting supportive honks from passing motorists and waving rainbow flags and signs with slogans like, “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not eating,” and “Eat Mor Equality.” 
 
 Most of the customers said in interviews that they supported gay rights, but that they did not think the food chain’s opposition to same-sex marriage prohibited them from eating at Chick-fil-A. The demonstrators made it clear that they were not protesting local Chick-fil-A employees, who offered free lemonade that the protesters declined to take. 
 
 Phil Skinner/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated Press 
 
 Among those gathered outside was Marci Alt, who runs a production company that publishes the Gay Community Yellow Pages in Atlanta. Ms. Alt, who was at the protest with her partner, Marlysa Alt, has started a petition on Change.org that invited the restaurant’s president, Dan T. Cathy, to have dinner with her and her family. 
 
 “I make great matzo ball soup,” said Marci Alt, who said she wanted to ask Mr. Cathy whether he really thinks “that we are not the same kind of normal family as you and your wife?” 
 
 Ms. Alt said she was surprised by how many people showed up to support Chick-fil-A on Wednesday. 
 
 Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, used his television show and Facebook to help organize what he called “appreciation day.” He asked people to show up on Wednesday after gay-rights advocates had called for a boycott of the chain because of the millions the company has donated to organizations that are lobbying against laws allowing same-sex marriage, and after remarks from Mr. Cathy, who said that the biblical view of marriage should be upheld. 
 
 Ms. Alt said she believes that many of those who showed up on Wednesday were unaware of how the company uses its money to support groups that lobby against gay rights. 
 
 “A lot of those same people have gay daughters, gay sons, gay parents,” she said. “Knowing that my money is going to be used to oppose gay marriage — I can’t choose that.” 
 
 Throughout the day, people shared photos of kisses being exchanged at Chick-fil-A, as part of the kiss-in event, on Twitter and other social networking sites. 
 
 Jimmy and Sebastion take a moment to kiss at the Lindbergh Chick-fil-A as part of national kiss-in day. #chickfilA //t.co/tMJeaRxB — dyanabagby (@dyanabagby) 3 Aug 12 
 
 Instead of heading to a restaurant to share their kiss, Bria Kam and Chrissy Chambers from Atlanta wrote a song about why they were no longer going to eat the chicken sandwiches and waffle fries they love, and performed it in a YouTube video. 
 
 On Twitter, some people openly displayed their disdain for the kiss-in, including a state legislator from Rhode Island, Representative Daniel P. Gordon Jr. who posted this with the hashtag, #protip: 
 
 A ‘kiss-in’ at Chick-Fil-A? You really think that’s going to help your cause? No one wants to see a mass of anyone mugging-up. #ProTip — Rep. Dan Gordon (@Rep_DanGordon) 3 Aug 12 
 
 The overflowing conversation over Chick-fil-A on social media platforms in recent days reveals strong feelings on both sides of the debate. 
 
 An Arizona man, Adam Smith, lost his job as an executive for a medical firm after he posted a video online of his encounter with a Chick-fil-A employee at a drive-up window on Wednesday. He taped the conversation with the employee, who did not lose her composure as he told her that he did not know how she could “live with herself” working for a company that gives money to hate groups. 
 
 In California, employees at a Chick-fil-A in Torrance found graffiti when they arrived to work on Friday. 
 
 Reuters 
 
 The company has not been discussing the boycott or the appreciation day organized by Mr. Huckabee. In a brief statement on Friday, Steve Robinson, the executive vice president of marketing for the chain, said: “At Chick-fil-A, we appreciate all of our customers and are glad to serve them at any time. Our goal is simple: To provide great food, genuine hospitality and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.” 
 
 Herndon Graddick, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said that people have every right to speak up against Chick-fil-A. 
 
 “As a private company, Chick-fil-A has every right to alienate as many customers as they want,” he said in a statement. “But consumers and communities have every right to speak up when a company’s president accuses them of ‘inviting God’s wrath’ by treating their L.G.B.T. friends, neighbors and family members with respect.” 
 
 Many online have been talking about how they are finding comments about the controversy over Chick-fil-A disheartening. 
 
 On Wednesday night, a Texas man posted on Facebook that he was going to unfriend all of the people who shared photos of their chicken sandwiches, as he said they didn’t understand how hurtful it was to him, a gay man, to see those photos in his news feed. 
 
 A woman from Kentucky wrote on her Facebook page Friday night: 

 Gay rights activists kissed at Chick-fil-A stores across the U.S., 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. 
 
 Gay marriage supporters, from left, Emmie Hesley, Cathy Dear and Amy Paffenroth hold signs in front of a Chick-fil-A in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Thursday Aug. 2, 2012, in protest of the chicken eatery's... (Associated Press) 
 
 Tascha Madaffari, left, with her children William and Emerson, front, join gay rights supporters Laura Whitman and Taylor Pasqualetti, right, for a picnic outside the Decatur, Ga., Chick-fil-A restaurant... (Associated Press) 
 
 Graffiti is painted on the exterior wall of Chick-fil-A restaurant in Torrance, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. The graffiti on the side of the restaurant said "Tastes like hate" and had a picture of... (Associated Press) 
 
 From left, Chick-fil-A employee Chug Shafe offers lemonade to Jennifer McNulty and her husband Jesse outside the Decatur, Ga., Chick-fil-A restaurant Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. Gay rights activists are planning... (Associated Press) 
 
 Jim Fortier, left, and Mark Toomajian, kiss as they join about two dozen members of gay rights groups and others protesting outside the Decatur, Ga., Chick-fil-A restaurant Friday, Aug. 3, 2012. Gay... (Associated Press) 
 
 Protesters take part in a "Kiss In" outside a Chick-fil-A restaurant on Friday, Aug. 3, 2012 in Atlanta. Gay rights activists are planning demonstrations at Chick-fil-A restaurants to protest the fast-food... (Associated Press) 
 
 The dueling displays of activism this week demonstrated an unusual amount of staying power over a flap that erupted weeks ago. The prolonged controversy speaks to underlying regional tensions in the U.S. that transcend the issue of gay rights. 
 
 Coursing throughout the conversations on social media, in letters to the editor and in long lines to buy chicken sandwiches is the sense among proud Southerners that the outcry over Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy's comments smacks of regional stereotyping. When public officials in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago tell a Southern icon such as Chick-fil-A that it's no longer welcome, and that Cathy should keep his opinions to himself, many in the Atlanta-based chain's home region hear more than a little northern condescension. 
 
 "Maybe the reaction is just because we're Southerners," said Rose Mason, who was lunching Friday at a Chick-fil-A in suburban Atlanta. 
 
 Mason, who described herself as Christian, said she grew up in New York City. Now, she said, "I deal with my sister telling me we're a little backward. People have this idea that we're just behind on everything. So they view anything we say through that (perception)." 
 
 Cathy, a devout Southern Baptist whose family has always been outspoken about its faith, sparked the controversy by telling the Baptist Press that he and his family-owned restaurant chain are "guilty as charged" for openly _ and financially _ supporting groups that advocate for "the biblical definition of a family unit." He later added that the United States is "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." 
 
 For Marci Alt, organizer of a protest Friday at a Chick-fil-A in the relatively liberal Atlanta suburb of Decatur, it's Cathy's financial backing of conservative groups such as the Family Research Council that takes the conversation beyond merely what he said. 
 
 Alt said Cathy has a constitutional right to speak out against same-sex marriage. 
 
 "But when he puts a pen to paper and writes a check to an organization that is about to squash my equal rights, I have a problem with that." 
 
 Cathy's comments were in keeping with the tradition established by his father, Truett Cathy, who started the chain in 1967 and never allowed franchises to open on Sundays. 
 
 Beyond Friday's organized displays of affection, there were other signs that the furor still had legs. Police were investigating graffiti on the side of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Torrance, California, that read "Tastes like hate" and had a painting of a cow, in reference to the chain's ubiquitous ads featuring cows encouraging people to eat poultry. 
 
 In Tucson, Arizona, an executive at a medical manufacturing company lost his job after filming himself verbally attacking a Chick-fil-A employee and posting the video online. 
 
 For William Klaus, a 26-year-old X-ray technician with traditional views on marriage, the debate starts at and ends with Cathy's liberty to voice his beliefs. 
 
 "He said what he said. Freedom of speech. Bottom line," Klaus said at a Chick-fil-A in Jackson, Mississippi. 
 
 However, that goes for Cathy's critics, too, said Klaus, adding that he stopped by the Jackson store simply to pick up some good food. 
 
 "For someone to blast him for his opinion, so be it _ they have that right." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Mississippi., Johnny Clark in Decatur, Georgia, Tony Winton in Davie, Florida, and Melissa Nelson-Gabriel in Pensacola, Florida, contributed to this report.
– It didn't draw crowds quite as big as Wednesday's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, but gays and lesbians held kiss-in demonstrations at the chain's restaurants across the country yesterday to protest owner Dan Cathy's opposition to gay marriage. Cops were called to one Hollywood restaurant not because of the smooching, but because of the heavy media presence, reports the Los Angeles Times. Elsewhere in California, police are investigating graffiti at a Chick-fil-A restaurant that said "Tastes like hate" and had a picture of cow, the AP reports. Around two dozen protesters with signs like "We're here, we're queer, and we're not eating" showed up at a Chick-fil-A restaurant near the company's Georgia headquarters, the New York Times reports. They made it clear they were not protesting the chain's local employees, who provided the activists with free lemonade. One of the protesters, a married lesbian with two children, has started an online petition inviting Cathy to have dinner with her and her family. She wants to ask him whether he really thinks "that we are not the same kind of normal family as you and your wife?"