I suppose I haven’t really talked about this yet … I was honestly kinda hoping to avoid it because I feel like I’ve been doing an awful lot of ranting and less fun/funny stuff lately, but I just keep reading more and more comments on Facebook about people brushing the whole thing off as “free speech – not a big deal” that I just can’t help myself anymore.
Let’s make one thing clear – freedom of speech does not exempt your words from being considered hateful.
The quintessential example in society right now is probably the Westboro Baptist Church – this small group of extremist nutjobs says some of the most vile, hateful things about pretty much everybody in the name of their religious beliefs, and yet legally they’re perfectly within their rights under the First Amendment. But that doesn’t make what they’re saying right.
The same applies to Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A when he says in an interview that he supports “traditional marriage” as opposed to gay marriage – sure, he’s allowed to say that just like how back in the early 1900’s some stood tall to proclaim that they didn’t believe women should have the right to vote, or even further back in the 1800’s when many still considered slavery to be ok … but don’t throw up your arms and scream that it’s not hate speech, it’s just your beliefs.
If your beliefs are that a certain segment of the population doesn’t deserve the same rights that you do, that’s just about as hateful as it gets.
A lot of people try to hide behind the bible when it comes to gay rights with this argument because God says that being gay is immoral, and I guess if that’s the case, then your God sounds like a pretty hateful guy, too, and it’s a good thing that we run our country based on the Constitution rather than his words because that sure wouldn’t be fair to a good segment of our society. You have every right to stand on the corner or do a magazine interview stating that you don’t support gay marriage, and you’re still welcome to rally behind those businesses who follow your own bizarre interpretation of “morals,” but don’t act all outraged when the rest of us call you on your inane bigotry guised under religious doctrine if you want to defend beliefs that discriminate against your fellow man.
Isn’t there something about that in the bible, too?
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To be honest, this whole thing conflicts me because on one hand, everything that I just wrote above, and yet at the same time, Chick-Fil-A still makes some of the best chicken I’ve ever tasted! It sucks that they have to bring politics into the mix instead of just focusing on making delicious chicken because now I actually have to think about whether I want to support not only their CEO and his beliefs, but also discount my disapproval for everyone else who’s supporting the company specifically because they also believe in all of this anti-gay rhetoric themselves.
I heard a great quote a while back of how Colonel Sanders of KFC fame used to respond when asked of his opinion about hot political issues – “I make chicken.” – meaning, it didn’t matter what his political opinions were because first and foremost, he wanted his brand to be known for their chicken and not anything else.
It’s times like this when I kinda wish that Chick-Fil-A just made excellent chicken, too…