Let’s jump right on in, shall we?
Chick-Fil-A had a good day August 1st. Throngs of supporters lined up, many in
excessive heat zones, to buy a chicken sandwich and show their support for
Chick-Fil-A. One Chick-Fil-A even ran out of food!
All this came about after the fast-food chain received
criticism for statements Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy made about his opposition to same-sex marriage and that supporting same-sex marriage
invites God’s punishment upon our nation.
In an effort to better understand what Mr. Cathy is
supporting and condemning and predicting the wrath of God over, I sorted
through several articles and noticed that Cathy was rather specific in his
wording.
Questioned about the opposition his company, Chick-fil-A, has received on its position supporting the so-called "traditional family," CEO Dan Cathy quipped, "Well, guilty as charged." In a recent article appearing in theBaptist Press (July 22), he continued that "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."
Pause…consider…continue.
It seems that Cathy takes issue with more than same-sex
marriage there. Oh, he is clearly
opposed to all things rainbow…but some other folk may want to take pass on that
sandwich too.
For example, the divorced.
Base on his quote, Cathy feels that being man-on-woman
married is a one-time deal.
Folks who are living together may want to get a nice crispy
tolerant and accepting salad instead.
Um, folks who lived together before getting married.
Oh, and people who had or are having "pre-marital" sex too!
Pause…sip coffee…continue.
Come to think of it, if folk falling short of Cathy’s
interpretation of what pleases God stopped going to Chick-Fil-A and scored
salad and soup instead…well, the health care benefits would be huge!
On a positive note, this whole mess shines a light on how we
should all be wary of where we spend our hard earned cash lest we line the
wallets of bigots.
Seriously, though…I don’t understand Chick-Fil-A’s statement
of how they treat everyone who enters their establishments with respect and
blah, blah, followed by blah.
If they truly believe that LGBT people seeking marriage
equality invite the wrath of God then why the fuck are they committed to
respecting them?
That doesn’t make sense within the anti-gay vengeful God
rhetoric Cathy spouts.
Either Chick-Fil-A is full of shit or their family-run
private bitness worships the god of money more than they fear God’s wrath.
Mayhap they are a crispy fried combo of both?
Blink.
5 comments:
Oh, they aren't just anti-gay or even only concerned with marriage. They're religious authoritarians—theocrats. See, for instance, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/07/23/361219/-Dominionism-s-parallel-economy-Pt-2-Dominionism-s-Corporate-Sponsors
It's not just LGBTQ people they have an issue with: http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/08/chick-fil-as-history-of-workplace-discrimination.html
And: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/27/brenda-honeycutt-chick-fil-a-sues-gender-discrimination_n_1709645.html
Of the nastiest (in my opinion) organizations they support is Exodus International, one of those "ex-gay" joints. So they don't just oppose gay rights or gay marriage; they support the elimination of gay people.
On Garpu's note: at the CFA by my school, in the middle of Chicago, the great majority of workers, and an even bigger majority of managers, are white. In a city in which the fast food industry employs a very large number of black folks, it makes a bitch wonder. It makes. a bitch. wonder.
Actually, I rather suspect that they "respect" their LGBT customers because they don't want to get sued repeatedly in the less conservative states where they're trying to gain footholds.
Big difference (legally) between espousing blahblah as the company "values" and formally creating policies that use those "values" in ways that are against existing civil rights laws in hiring or so on.
The "right to refuse service" ends where civil rights laws begin -- and though us queers aren't federally protected from much of anything, some of the states (CA, eg) where they're trying to do business do have such protections. So whether the business _actually_ treats anybody, customer or employee, with respect, they have to _say_ they do.
I'm sure they have a whole team of Christian lawyers telling them exactly what they should and should not say here to deal with the lines of anti-discrimination laws.
And I equally "suspect" (know) that the reality of these things is that I'm sure they discriminate like mad, in hiring and customer treatment, because there are about a bazillion ways to appear to follow the letter of the law and still utterly ignore it. I'm sure the employee who just started "living in sin" with her boyfriend or partner or whomever will generally quite suddenly be a poor performer, will be given a terrible schedule that she can't possibly do, and will be fired for being 21 seconds late to her shift. But even if she somehow magically can show a court that they had it in for her based on her marital status (highly unlikely), nobody will be able to legally pin it to the company above her direct franchise owner, because the _big_ boss didn't say to discriminate, just to espouse "values."
Wow Chik-Fil-A could have Michelle Bachman as a spokesperson.
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