More Chick-fil-A, More Boycotting (and now a protest, too!)

I skipped writing yesterday.  Some days, even I run out of things to say.  I'm back now, though.


I started a protest event against Chick-fil-A on Facebook today.  National Gay Up Chick-fil-A Day was born when Kim sent me this link, which basically reasserts the fact that the bigotry I talked about here was not as isolated as I was lead to believe when I posted this.  I posted this on my Facebook page:


I want to gay up Chick-fil-A so hard. I need more friends who like to dress in drag - I want to get 50 of my closest cross-dressing friends together and love-bomb the Jesus Chicken Stores. I want to get my favorite gay couples together to have a big fat party in the middle of the Chick-fil-A dining rooms. And I want us to all order only water, because I'll never give those bigots another dime of my money.


and a few of my male (straight) friends were all "I'm in!" and Kim was all "You should create an event" and so I did.  I don't know why the plight of homosexuals strikes such a chord with me or makes me so viscerally angry; I'm like the ungayest person I know.  But I truly, completely, absolutely believe in the principle of equality, that we are all entitled to a set list of basic human rights.  Love, and the ability to love whom we choose,  is a basic human right.  In a land where we proclaim "all men are created equal", I find it abhorrent that there's even a discussion about limiting the rights of our citizens on the basis of whom they love.  To do so in the name of Jesus Christ, who was like the poster child for "Love Thy Neighbor", defies comprehension.  

"They're a business run based on Christian values, what do you expect?"  A more Christ-like example, perhaps?  Christ loved everyone.  He turned to the lepers and the poor to help them; he didn't turn away from them or try to marginalize them.  You want to be a true Christian to your fellow man?  Invite the gay couple across the street over for dinner; yes, even when your kids are home.  Invite them into your home and get to know them as human beings, not as lesbians or faggots.  Realize that they have the same worries and fears about money and crime and what the future will be like for their children.  Realize that their homosexuality is something God ingrained in them, and that no amount or prayer or therapy or shame is going to change that fact.  Love them because Christ loved them, and because they too are your brothers and sisters.  Love them because they are just like you; they are you.  Want for them the things you want for your children and your friends and your family.  That's what Jesus would do, and I'm pretty sure his part in the Bible came after that old book that banned homosexuality, shellfish, and women speaking in public.

A friend said "Businesses can support whatever organizations they choose".  Sure they can, but they also should be held accountable for those choices.  I'd like to help make Chick-fil-A patrons more aware of what their lunch money is funding.  I honestly, deep in my soul, feel that their donations to organizations whose mission statements center around denying equal rights to people based on their sexual orientation is exactly the same as if they were donating to the Ku Klux Klan in an effort to limit the rights of Non-White Americans.  I can't understand why every American isn't standing up and shouting "Separation of Church and State, Bitches!"  If marriage was governed by religious organizations, I could see the objections to same-sex marriage being sustained, but last I checked, you've got to go through the State to get a marriage license, and discrimination against American citizens on the basis of religious objections seems contrary to the First Amendment.  

Of course, like everything else I do, this event was put together hastily and without any forethought or organization or plan, and of course, as is always the case, people are picking it apart.  Of course, this makes me feel like that's some sort of statement against me personally, against my views, my opinions, my beliefs, my general standing as a person.  Because it's all about me, right?  Even this, which really isn't about me in any way, shape, or form, I can turn around to be about me.  Sarcasm and haughty laughter stings, but when you get down to the nitty gritty of what I'm feeling when I read that crap, it's just flat-out disappointment that so many people can just stand by and watch as the rights of their fellow Americans are denied or revoked.  It makes me sad.

• 
  
  

  First they came for the communists,
  and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
  
  Then they came for the trade unionists,
  and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
  
  Then they came for the Jews,
  and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
  
  Then they came for me
  and there was no one left to speak out for me.

  
  

  - Pastor Martin Niemoller

  
  

  
  
  
  
  Edit:  I cancelled the event because the more I thought about it, the more reaction I got, the more I came to realize the title, the premise behind it, was motivated by a passionate gut-reaction and probably wouldn't end up being anything close to what I pictured when I went off half-cocked and suggested it.  And honestly?  I can't handle criticism and direct hate in reaction to something I feel so strongly about.  So I'll be like everyone else; Maybe someone else gets what I was trying to say.  Maybe someone else will do something about it.  Maybe they're right - maybe this isn't my battle to try to fight.