Chick-Fil-A

An opinion is no longer merely a personal opinion when you start to put your money behind it. In the case of Chick-Fil-A, contrary to the assertions of one former-governor Mike Huckabee, it is not Dan Cathy’s personal opinion that is getting Chick-Fil-A fileted in public. Oh no, not when that company has donated millions of dollars through their charitable arm, the WinShape Foundation, to known anti-gay organizations. The paper and money trail is miles long, and Chick-Fil-A, the corporation, is complicit in every action of every organization they have helped fund, including the Family Research Council, who is designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

To make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American society, the FRC employs a number of “policy experts” whose “research” has allowed the FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors in an effort to “transform the culture.”

Despite Chick-Fil-A attempting to say they don’t have an “anti-gay agenda”, again the paper and money trail begs to differ. Money talks, to borrow the oft-repeated colloquialism, and in this case, it’s shouting from the rooftops, to borrow another.

Now, this whole Chick-Fil-A thing has gotten way out of control. The company has always had a Christian foundation, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Likely half or more of the small businesses I’ve patronized here in Kansas City are the same way. But how many of those small businesses use company cash to support organizations with an anti-gay agenda? Likely none of them.

And when a company uses its charitable arm to fund organizations who bully gay teenagers, it is no longer a matter of personal opinion.

And if a corporation is going to take a staunchly anti-liberty stance, cities have the right to say, through their various zoning commissions and even through the mayor’s office, that said corporation is not welcome in that city. So have said the governments of Boston and Chicago, with likely other large cities following suit. Kansas City is not likely to be one of them, especially since here in KC most of the Chick-Fil-As are in the mostly conservative suburbs. Only two are in Kansas City, Missouri, and one is in Kansas City, Kansas.

In a way this is unfair as it is not the corporation that determines where a new Chick-Fil-A will open. You see most Chick-Fil-A locations are franchises. This means the locations are owned and operated by a separate sole proprietor or local corporation. That decision on where a new Chick-Fil-A will open is made by such proprietors and corporations. By boycotting Chick-Fil-A, the boycotters are actually harming the franchisees, not the corporation itself, which will continue to survive so long as there are franchises still open and paying their contractual obligations.

But that is not the concern. A portion of every dollar spent at the franchises goes to the corporation. And a portion of what goes to the corporation makes its way to WinShare. This means that every patron of Chick-Fil-A is complicit in what this corporation has done. And as such I cannot patron such an organization, knowing where their money has gone before and likely still is going today.

Naturally in the wake of these boycotts against the chain, Christians are rising up. And many are saying the vitriol against Chick-Fil-A is just another “battle in the war on religious freedom“, to borrow the words of Victoria Cobb of the Family Foundation, based in Richmond, Virginia. In other words, it is once again about protecting a group’s so-called right to persecute others by screaming persecution themselves. Now where have I heard that before?

As True Christians, we are called upon to marginalize other faiths or people with no faith and to scream “PERSECUTION!” when they rudely return the favor.

– Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian!

Indeed, John Langer said this on Facebook:

UNITED WE ARE IMPACTFUL. UNITED WE ARE EFFECTUAL. UNITED WE WILL TAKE BACK THIS LOST LAND. IT’S HAPPENING PATRIOT’S. [sic] CAN’T YOU FEEL IT!!

Ah yes, because bigotry is Christian and patriotic…. Oh wait, this is the United States. Of course bigotry is patriotic. It’s part of our legacy. And rather than shed that legacy, they’d rather defend it in the name of “Christian principles”. We need to protect a majority’s right to persecute and denigrate a targeted minority, because that’s the American way! Or at least it was until the Supreme Court of the United States started doing their freakin’ job and actually defending the Fourteenth Amendment’s language. Given how much of a shortfall they’ve actually been in defending the Constitution, it’s no surprise they really dropped the ball on Obamacare.

And once again we see Christians asserting the existence of a majority without realizing that they want to take away rights from people who are not them! It seems that the idea of “God-given rights” means they determine which rights God has really given you. Do they not see their own hypocrisy? Of course not!

Now thankfully not all who identify as Christians think this way. Oh wait, I can hear it now… “they’re not true Christians!” *Facepalm*

Follow-up: Do not confront the employees