I haven’t posted in a while, for better or for worse, but today I’m dusting off the old blog so I can say my peace about this whole Chik-Fil-A business and not have to repeat myself every time a new Facebook friend makes a post that suggests to me that they don’t really understand what it is all about. In the following, I hope you’ll forgive a bit of inadvertent divisiveness in the interest of some brevity: When I refer to “we” or “us”, I’m referring to people who see nothing wrong with homosexuality and who support the full measure of rights for gay people, including marriage equality. Many, but not all of us have decided not to patronize Chick-Fil-A because of that company’s support for anti-gay rights organizations. By “you” I mean those who have suggested that our response to Chick-Fil-A has been silly or intolerant. I will presume (perhaps unfairly) that most of you oppose gay rights to some degree. Before I get to the meat of my argument, I’d like to begin with two minor conciliatory points.
First, whatever your beliefs on gay rights, I don’t think that whether or not you eat at Chik-Fil-A says much about your moral character. I’ve known that Chik-Fil-A gives money to anti-gay rights organizations (with which I disagree with strongly) for several years, and that has not stopped me from eating there occasionally. But Dan Cathy’s recent comments and the ensuing publicity have given me occasion to reconsider my habits, and I have decided to decrease my patronage of CFA slightly, from occasionally to never. My point is that this is not a bold move on my part, not that it would be much bolder if I had had a twelve nugget a day habit. So at some level I agree with those who think the Chik-Fil-A “boycott” is not worthy of all the ink and pixels that have been spilled over it.
Second, while I do think that opposition to gay rights is a moral flaw, I recognize that others see it differently, and it is not part of my agenda with this post to get you to change your minds. Instead, I’d like to convince you that given our perspective on gay rights, calling Chik-Fil-A out for their opposition to those rights and withholding business that might be used to fund that opposition is neither radical nor petty.
Before I attempt that, however, I want to address a point that is not so much about the substance of the gay rights argument, but about the principal of a boycott in general. It goes like this: “Look at these hypocrites. They’re not going to eat at Chik-Fil-A because of the gay rights stuff, but I bet they’re still gonna shop at all kinds of places that give money to causes they disagree with.” I’ll concede the facts of this point immediately; I don’t boycott every corporation that does stuff I don’t agree with, and in fact I sometimes cultivate a willful ignorance of the corporate culture of the companies I do business with because I don’t want my conscience guilting me into having to pay 30% more to buy fair trade organic cruelty free low sodium Hamburger Helper or whatever. So I don’t live my life with total integrity, and I suspect that maybe I’m not the only one. But I don’t understand the argument that because I don’t live up to all my ideals, I shouldn’t try to live up to any of my ideals. I don’t think my only choices are “Be perfect” or “Don’t bother”. Today I’m working on getting my actions in line with my principals on gay rights. Maybe tomorrow I’ll work on fair labor practices and stop shopping at Walmart. Or maybe I won’t; that doesn’t make my stance on Chik-Fil-A today any less a reasonable exercise of conscience.
The other point I see my conservative friends making is that we are boycotting Chik-Fil-A “just because we disagree with them”, as if this whole thing were about an unpopular movie review. Um, no. The boycott is about CFA’s actions: Dan Cathy’s public statement’s, and much more significantly, the company’s donations to groups that oppose equal rights for gay Americans.
See that from our perspective. Pretend, for just a moment, that you agree with us that there is nothing wrong with being gay, that gay citizens deserve all the rights that any citizen is entitled to, including the right to marry the person they love. If you can manage this small feat of moral make believe, you should be able to see why, from our perspective, Chik-Fil-A’s actions are so ugly. From our perspective, Chik-Fil-A essentially gave money to the KKK.
Unfair comparison? Maybe just a little; I’ll address that in a moment. But remember, you’re pretending you agree with us, that you see a person’s homosexuality as unremarkable and as irrelevant to his entitlement to participate openly and fully in society as his skin color or religion. So the difference between the KKK’s efforts to marginalize African Americans, Jews, and others and Focus On The Family’s efforts to marginalize gays is at best matter of degree. You might protest that the difference is actually one of a violent terrorist organization versus of a nonviolent advocacy group, and I’ll grant you that to a point. But the attempted suicide rate among gay teenagers is is 2-3 times that of their straight peers, and I lay much of the blame for that on the kind of anti-gay, “you’re not worthy” rhetoric that Focus On The Family and similar groups spout. No jury in the land would convict them, but for those of us who see the line from the intolerance these groups promote in the culture to the pile of dead and injured kids, the claims of nonviolence start to seem a little hollow. Finally, it is worth noting that Focus On The Family, along with Family Research Council, another group supported by CFA, have one more thing in common with the KKK: They all have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Okay, you can stop pretending now. I recognize that many of you have deeply held beliefs about the biological, psychological, and moral nature of homosexuality that mean you don’t actually buy any of the above. I think you are very, very wrong, but again, the purpose of this essay is not to change your mind about that. I’d just like you understand why some us think that depriving ourselves of a tasty chicken sandwich to deprive Chick-Fil-A of a couple of bucks is a moral choice worth making and of encouraging others to make. Argue with us about the underlying principals if you want, but give your friends some credit for sincerity and good intentions when we try to put principals into action. And enjoy the shorter lines at Chik-Fil-A. We’ll be at home eating Oreos.
