There are no Chick-fil-A restaurants in Newfoundland, but there are certainly plenty of other fast-food chicken joints.
If you’re gay, you may want to visit one today — purely symbolically — and grab a smooch off your partner.
Gays and lesbians across the U.S. are gathering at Chick-fil-A outlets today and kissing their partners to protest chain president Dan Cathy’s stance against same-sex marriage.
Two weeks ago, Cathy said he feared “God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’
“I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is all about.”
Gay rights advocates were outraged, and protest over Chick-fil-A’s politicization of chicken came from all corners. The mayors of Chicago, Boston and San Francisco said the chain is not welcome in their cities. Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos even donated $2.5-million to the same-sex marriage campaign in response to the controversy.
But on Wednesday, egged on by former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and other right-wing hawks, thousands of traditional-marriage stalwarts flocked to Chick-fil-A restaurants to show appreciation for Cathy’s fundamentalist views.
Most businesses have learned that ruffling feathers over social issues — especially homosexuality — is not worth the grief. In the old days, that usually meant avoiding any association with the gay movement.
That has changed radically.
In February, JC Penny ignored a petition by One Million Moms to drop the openly gay Ellen Degeneres from its ad campaign. It was a departure from the usual hair-trigger capitulation companies make when confronted with threats of boycott.
(One Million Moms, incidently, is now calling for a boycott of Amazon.)
The Chick-fil-A furor reflects a deeply entrenched polarization over the issue of same-sex marriage in the U.S. The population is pretty well divided down the middle, and President Barack Obama’s recent endorsement of it has perhaps only further emboldened opponents.
Amid all the squawking, however, many average citizens simply shrugged the whole thing off.
“Look forward to Chick-fil-A introducing their Only Some People Are Allowed to Be Happy Meal,” joked one observer on Twitter.
“I’m not racist, I just believe in traditional bus seating arrangements,” quipped another.
Put the most common sentiment in the days to follow was likely summarized in this tweet:
“All I’m saying is if u see me at a Chick-Fil-A in the near future don’t think I’m making a political statement. I just like chicken.”
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BTW...people who commit suicide are mentally screwed up. You and your ilk think it's plain as day to correlate every such suicide exactly and precisely to bullying and torment. I don't. I'm open minded enough to think that it could be lots of things, including that some people are simply not being able to cope with life. What an outrage, you say! How can anyone be so intolerant of blah...blah...blah...blah..... I'm not running for office, so my brain still actually works. Get a grip. Some gay people might simply be weak-minded, hyper-sensitive, weak-minded individuals. It's possible!!