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| Is this chicken going to grill himself? |
People are getting agitated because the crusty old bastard who owns ‘Chick-fil-A’ opposes same sex marriage (or, in his words, he supports the “biblical definition of a family”). (If either one of my two readers is not from the US, ‘Chick-fil-A’ is like McDonalds, but they serve breaded chicken patties on a bun instead of beef. The name is pronounced, “Chick-Filet.”) As far as I know, Chick-fil-A has not refused to hire gay people and has not refused to let gay people eat their crappy food. But people from both sides are mad anyway.
The gay people and their friends (mostly lefties; the folks I usually end up self-identifying with) think that Dan Cathy, president and owner of Chick-fil-A, is ‘an intolerant bigot’ and are encouraging a boycott. Aldermen, mayors and other bottom feeders in the political arena are threatening to make things hot for Chick-fil-A in their districts. On the other hand, the ‘Chick-fil-A’ kerfuffle has become red meat for the likes of right-wing opinionators like Sarah Palin and Michelle Malkin, who are holding up the idea that people would boycott a restaurant because of the owner’s opinions on gay marriage as ‘un-American’ or are impinging on Dan Cathy’s religious freedoms. Even ‘The Muppets’ have weighed in on the controversy; Henson Studios recently backed out of a deal to provide promotional muppet themed toys for Chick-fil-A’s kid’s meals because they didn’t want to be associated with the Chick-fil-A brand due to the owner’s comments.
I will have no problem in stopping myself from eating ‘Chick-fil-A’ because I think their food is absolute crap. But I do think that it is wrong for mayors and aldermen to threaten to refuse to allow ‘Chick-fil-A’ to open in their districts or interfering with the business as a ‘fuck you’ to the owners simply because of what the owner said in order to score points with some of their liberal base, much like I think it’s wrong for political operators in Rutherford County, Tennessee to attempt to stonewall the opening of a mosque in order to score points with anti-Muslim conservatives. However stupid I think the opinions of the owner of ‘Chick-fil-A’ may be, having opinions should not be illegal (maybe calling Chick-fil-A suitable for human consumption ought to be illegal, but I digress). Besides, if McDonalds and Burger King can serve crappy food, Chick-fil-A ought to be able to as well.
That said, I think boycotts are as American as succotash*, and, as Americans, we should feel free to boycott whatever we want whenever we want for whatever reason we want. Speaking of ‘biblical principles,’ Reverend Jerry Fallwell encouraged his followers to boycott ‘Teletubbies’ because, in Fallwell’s opinion, the ‘teletubbies’ encouraged kids to ‘turn gay’ (His evidence? One of the Telletubbies carried a purse and had a triangle on its sexless head — case closed!). In 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to boycott Disney because Disney Corporation offered same sex partner benefits to their employees. What’s good for the goose ought to be good for the gander. If consumers don’t want to eat ‘Chick-fil-A’ because they don’t like the cut of the owner’s jib, they should go for it. If the owner of Chick-fil-A doesn’t want to have gays and their friends boycotting his store, he might want to keep his opinions to himself. It’s not as if there is any shortage of crappy fast food in America, anyway.
*The usual phrase is, “American as apple pie,” but I understand that ‘apple pies’ have been served in England since at least the middle ages (if not earlier), making them not very “American” at all, so I went with succotash, which was introduced to the pilgrims by the Narragansett Indians and was apparently one of the first ‘Thanksgiving’ foods).