“…it’s just like voting, if you don’t vote then you have no right to complain about what happens in the next four years. In this case, if you don’t stand up for the right for gay people to get married then you should just shut up when they come for you next. ”
-quote from one of the 1,349,712 Facebook threads I’ve read on the Chick Fil A fiasco
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the last few weeks, or bitten by a zombie and just awakened recently in your new, brain eating state you know about the clusterf*ck that is the Chick-Fil-A debate. A week or so ago when this whole thing went nuclear holocaust after Dan Cathy’s comments broke about his stance on marriage I admit that I didn’t get it so I posted something to that effect – I don’t get it – on my Facebook page where, for the next several hours I feared for the server stability at the Facebook offices at the rate and amount of words posted in response. However, I did walk away from that debate with knowledge of the root of the problem; that it wasn’t about his right to say what he said that day, rather, it was about the profits of Chick-Fil-A, some of which went to organizations that are allegedly hate groups…specifically LGBT hate groups. And I got that, and was happy with my learning and information.
Hot button issues like this one cause people to draw very deep lines in the sand and that’s okay. We all have the privilege in this country to believe what we like; ideally people with their one opinion and people that oppose can simply and proverbially “agree to disagree”. But almost always the mudslinging begins and things degenerate to the base level of:
pro-Chick-Fil-A zealots saying “you gay people are all going to burn in hell”…
…and the pro-Marriage Equality zealots calling the opposition a “bunch of clueless n*ggers being led like sheep by their Conservative puppetmasters”…
…and then the retort from the pro-Chick-Fil-A zealots goes a little something like “nobody is denying you the right to have some chicken, sit down, eat your chargrilled chicken and be quiet”…
…to which the pro-Marriage Equality zealot says “There’s no way I would ever eat your cancer causing chicken, I hope that you catch it and die off as the world would be better without you”…
And on and on and on the carousel spins until I log onto Facebook one day and say, hey wasn’t this about freedom of speech vs. donated profits to hate groups a week ago?
Much like every other hot button topic in this nation, what started as reasonable has turned into something far less than. Go to any search engine and type in Chick-Fil-A or Dan Cathy and watch the name calling start up. Click on that picture on your acquaintance’s Facebook page of the people lined up outside a Chick-Fil-A restaurant and prepare yourself for comments calling people “dumb” or “uninformed idiots” or something of the like. Go to Twitter and visit a friend’s page and click on his status that says “I support Dan Cathy and Chick-Fil-A” and then prepare yourself for comment after comment of people talking about the liberal agenda and a soon to be Communist takeover in the nation.
Basic human rights and carelessly directed profits vs. Freedom of Speech and Biblical principle. That’s what this is about, right?
I mean, that’s what I was told when I finally understood it a week ago. Before everything went all America and people on both sides started calling people chicken lovin’ n*ggers and hell bound Sodomites? Before churches started taking pictures of their parishioners holding chicken sandwiches aloft proudly and same sex couples responding in kind by posting pictures of themselves french-kissing in front of a Chick Fil-A stores.
Am I a simpleton? Maybe I am. If I’m stupid here, I’ll claim that. There’s no harm in not understanding. But when I see quotes like the one posted above that I saw while perusing the internet I know that it’s not at all as simple as people made it seem 7-10 days ago. And, hell, maybe I do get it and am just exhausted by everyone beating one another over the heads with their version of right, that’s a possibility. I know one thing though, I’m done, I’m out, this thing has jumped the shark. In fact, I don’t even want chicken anymore, ever; I’m going to Long John Silvers, it should be nice and quiet in there.
~thanks for reading
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The Last Atlanta Native 
Here’s my thing: The gay rights movement has been compared to the Civil Rights movement and in some ways, it’s similar — especially the marriage thing, considering that interracial marriage was illegal in a lot of the country only 50 or so years ago.
BUT … the way people in the Civil Rights movement won ground and finally caused fundamental and positive change was not to argue back and forth and call people names or even to question their fundamental beliefs, but just by showing bigots how wrong they were. Great men like Martin Luther King stood up in Washington, D.C., and gave well thought-out, articulate speeches about love and equality and little children getting along and prospering.
What’s happening now is only causing each side to dig its heels in deeper and deeper because the usual human response to “you can’t do/say/think/eat that” is “you’re not the boss of me and I’m gonna!”
And I’m tired of all of it.
And, also, there’s a HUGE difference between what a private company does and says than when it’s the government doing or saying it. That’s something else people don’t get.
Personally, I’ve never had a desire to eat Chick-Fil-A, so ultimately, I’m not doing anything different now than before.
I’m not even sure why the Chik-fil-A chicken sandwich even exists…their breakfast chicken biscuit is 1,000 times better and it would sell all day….so confused
First off: Well done. It is difficult at time, as a writer, to approach a subject and write not about your opinion but how other are expressing theirs. You did an excellent job.
Actually, I wonder even after this article where you stand on the issue itself. You are a unique person in your composition of easy-going-friends-with-every-one, and a devoted church-goer. You seem like you would be split down the middle.
My deeper thoughts on the issue above; I don’t think this is an issue of Freedom of Speech and\or Biblical Family versus Donations to Hate Groups any more. I’m not even sure it ever was.
I believe this is now a “We get a slightly veiled way to say we hate queers” versus “I hate that place for shoving its version of Christianity in everyone’s face.” Both sides are using the other arguments as straw men to disguise their disgusting true thoughts.
There is literally NO way to even begin to intelligently call this a free speech issue. Free speech equally protects Dan Cathy saying he thinks God judges us for having second wives and thinking about letting gays marry, as it protects anyone from saying they disagree with Cathy’s stand and thereby refuse to eat there.
The double standard here are astounding. “Dan Cathy is a moron.” “Hey, you can’t say that, we have Freedom of Speech, he can say anything he wants!” “Uhm, yeah, so can I.”
Boycotting Chic-fil-A should have been the end of this. But people had to be overdramatic and plaster FB and twitter with it. Well, people got upset, seeing their favorite restaurant, guided by people who share their religion, being talked poorly about. So they spoke up. And it quickly disintegrated from there.
Now, people go to CFA and post about on every social media site they can, to say, “GAY PEOPLE CREEP ME OUT AND I DONT WANT THEM TO HAVE RIGHTS.”
Gay people plan to go to CFA and make out, and I’m sure we will see entirely too much coverage of that as well. I just hope nothing there turns violent. We may, no kidding, have a new civil war and some gay couple getting shot in front of a Chic-fil-A (if you will allow me to mix metaphors slightly) will be the Crispus Attackus.
If tomorrow, Home Depot said they gave millions to the KKK, no one would hold a Home Depot appreciation day. Well, David Duke, maybe.
I must be a zombie. 😛 I just don’t keep up with this stuff but I’ll meet you at Long John’s if we can have a peaceful outing. 😀 I am informed by you so thanks for posting.