Friday, July 27, 2012

Chickens? Marriage? Frogs? What is this?

First of all... Chick-fil-a, noooo!

I do enjoy Chick-fil-A, especially the nuggets.  I've enjoyed them ever since they showed up in a local mall in the mid 80s, back then right next to a large video game arcade.  They've always been closed on Sundays for religious reasons, which I found a rather antiquated policy and often annoying (how often have I had a craving for Chick-fil-A and realized that it's Sunday?), but whatever.  You don't have to open a business when you don't want to, for any reason you choose.

But the other week I heard their president has announced opposition to marriage equality, touting biblical marriage, that he knows better than the rest of us, saying "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about."  As if that's not what people have always done, including him.  Not to mention that marriage in the Bible is pretty darn weird, what with the concubines and rape victims being forced to marry their rapists and polygamy and executing non-virgin brides and so on and so forth.  What, you don't follow those outdated precepts and traditions anymore, Mr Chicken?  Are you, too, guilty of arrogantly defining marriage due to changing cultural and social standards?

And even then, up until the 11th and 12th centuries, the Church didn't get involved in marriage.  Marriage was a common law thing, defined by the community.  Priests weren't involved and marriages didn't even take place inside the church.  It wasn't until the middle ages that they decided to turn marriage into a holy sacrament and made various laws enforcing it.  Later on, protestants would come out against that, removing marriage as a sacrament and returning it to the realm of earthly, civic jurisdiction.  Marriage has always been defined and redefined as needed by a society.

Well, anyway, even that's not all that important when it comes to selecting your vendor of battered chicken.  You can believe what you want.  Every CEO has their own personal beliefs or lack thereof, and is free to live his or her life accordingly.  Closing your business for whatever reason doesn't hurt anyone.  It's when I learned the company's been donating millions of dollars to oppose legalization of gay marriage, support of anti-gay conversion camps, and criminalization of homosexuality that I have to ask myself if I can give any money to a company that purposefully attempts to actively cause harm to others, make life harder people they don't like, and stand in the way of other people's pursuit of happiness while using religious dogma as an excuse for their own bigotry.

[Edit 8-04: This morning I was stuck behind an suv with its back and side windows painted "LOVES GOD AND JESUS, GOING STRAIGHT TO CHICK-FIL-A!"  Lovely, so now eating fried chicken is a religious statement.  And then, as if to punctuate his piety and demonstrate his civic-mindedness, the driver chucked an empty Chick-fil-A cup out of his window into the street.  Littering is next to godliness!]

But I was pleased to hear that the Jim Henson Company, which had been working with Chick-fil-A, has ceased their business relationship because of the company's stance.  Good on ya.  There's a company that's never ceased to amaze and, thanks to its movies and shows (Fraggle Rock, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth) shaped my childhood imagination to a strong degree.  So I thought I'd share this to wash away the bitterness.  Remember it?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Erika. My favourite Kermit tune was "It's Not Easy Being Green"...If you saw the graphic details of how mass chicken farms are run you would have stopped eating there years ago. Best Wishes.

Anonymous said...

Whether or not we ever have legalally recongized gay marriage in this country is not going to be decided by Chick-fil-A. Yes, the CEO is an asshat, but a lot of people who work for Chick-fil-A aren't. And they're subject to the same antidiscrimination laws as everyone else. If they break those, then come down on them like an old building.

I think boycotts are usually a way for people to feel good about themselves, but they mostly don't serve a useful purpose. (Though some do) I think the election returns are a lot more important than the friend chicken. We had a ballot measure here in North carolina banning gay marriage. I voted against it, but it passed anyway. That really mattered, and losing that vote hurt. I remember going to the polling place, and there were ass of old white people there to vote, and you knew what they were there for. I knew how that vote would come out.

Anyway, even if I wanted to join the boycott I couldn't. I don't eat Chick-fil_A, and I don't even do a of fast food. (Apart from Subway) But hopefully we'll make some progress at the voting booth in November!

PopTart

Anonymous said...

Crap. I tried to correct my spelling errors, and they ended up getting posted anyway. I can spell, people, I really can. I just can't type.

PopTart

EvilDolly said...

Well, a personal boycott may not do much good, but there's nothing wrong with doing it to feel better. But sometimes it does matter. A public company is run by its investors, and all they're interested in is money.

Anonymous said...

Well, I can't boycott Chick-fil-A because I never ate there anyway, but for whatever it's worth, I promise not to start.

PopTart