The First Amendment and The Chicken Wars
Read Time:5 Minute, 30 Second
I was not going to write about this, I really wasn’t. Everyone else under the sun has written about this, and what more can be said, right? Then I watched Sarah Palin whining on Fox, and I couldn’t stop myself.
Ms. Palin and her husband/executive assistant, Todd visited a Chick-Fil-A and had someone snap their picture holding bags of cholesterol-laden junk food, happy smiles alight on their faces. I have noted before that Ms. Palin cannot seem to tell time, since her 15 minutes were up long, long ago, and yet she keeps finding ways to slink back into the spotlight. As if the photo was not enough, Ms. Palin popped up on Fox with her BFF, Greta Van Susteren to bemoan the boycotts being called for by numerous organizations against Chick-Fil-A. From Huffington Post:
“Well, that calling for the boycott is a real — has a chilling effect on our 1st Amendment rights,” Palin told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “And the owner of the Chick-fil-A business had merely voiced his personal opinion about supporting traditional definition of marriage, one boy, one girl, falling in love, getting married. And having voiced support for kind of that cornerstone of all civilization and all religions since the beginning of time, he then basically [is] getting crucified.”
I guess we should all be thankful she only used the word “crucified” and refrained from mentioning a “blood libel” again. Ya know what? I’m fucking thrilled that I don’t have a traditional marriage, or a biblically correct marriage. My husband would have concubines, I would be in a red tent 5-10 days every month and he could sell me, beat me, rape me or pawn me off on a male family member.
Where was Sarah Palin when 45,000 Moms called for a boycott of J C Penney, or The Gap or Starbucks? When Lila Rose started bitching about the Girl Scouts? When Bill O’Reilly had his on air tantrum about Ludicris and boycotting Pepsi? She ignored all that, because, of course, those are right-wing groups and pundits and she has no problem whatsoever with their “chilling effect” on the First Amendment.
The other problem is that no one I know is attacking the Cathy family (that just looks so odd) for their beliefs. What I have a problem with is the FACT that Chick-Fil-A donates millions of dollars to hate groups. Hate groups like Family Research Council. Here’s a little information on FRC, from the Southern Poverty Law Center:
The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
A few quotes from FRC executives:
“Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”
— Robert Knight, FRC director of cultural studies, and Frank York, 1999
“[T]he evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.”
— Timothy Dailey, senior research fellow, “Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse,” 2002
“While activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. … It is a homosexual problem.”
— FRC President Tony Perkins, FRC website, 2010
Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies, said this during an interview with Chris Matthews:
“I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Matthews asked. “Yes,” Sprigg replied.
From Right Wing Watch.org:
“…one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.” —”Homosexual Behavior & Pedophilia,” a FRC publication, July 1999
Okay? Okay. By the way, the majority of pedophiles self-identify as heterosexual.
That’s why I am boycotting Chick-Fil-A. They support groups like FRC who would like to see my gay friends in prison or worse. There are numerous accounts that state FRC spent $25,000 lobbying Congress to NOT approve a resolution that would have condemned the Uganda “Kill the Gays” bill. FRC’s Tony Perkins claims that is not true, stating “FRC’s efforts, at the request of Congressional offices, were limited to seeking changes in the language of proposed drafts of the resolution, in order to make it more factually accurate regarding the content of the Uganda bill, and to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.
So Congressional offices wouldn’t let FRC tell Congress not to support the resolution and they were limited to just asking that the content be changed to say homosexuality is not a human right. Well, neither are hate and bigotry, but the far right seems to believe it is.
It’s not about the Cathy family’s beliefs, it’s about the hate and the lies and the misinformation and the bigotry and the fact that these assholes have no idea what a “traditional marriage” is. It’s about Sarah Palin forcing herself into the spotlight, blaring her hypocrisy across the airwaves. It’s about the millions of people who showed up to Support Chick-Fil-A Day, not having a clue what they are actually supporting.
Actually, maybe all those folks did know exactly what they are supporting. And they will take those hateful hearts to their Pentecostal churches this weekend, and get a big ol’ pat on the back from white, conservative, gun-totin’ Jesus. The real Jesus, the dark-skinned, barefoot lover of the poor, will weep.
Inset photo of funeral procession for Ugandan civil and gay rights activist, David Kato. Kato was murdered in 2011, shortly after winning a lawsuit against a magazine which had published his name and photograph identifying him as gay and calling for him to be executed.
Thanks to Think Progress, Huffington Post, SPLC, Right Wing Watch and Wikipedia for contributions to this article.
Follow MadMike’sAmerica on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to visit our HOME PAGE.
If you liked our story please share it at REDDIT.COM and PINTEREST as well as TUMBLR.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
As I stated, the Cathy family can believe whatever they want, and even say whatever they want. They donate millions of dollars to organizations like FRC. And FRC is a hate group. The Cathy family has been sued for discriminatory hiring and firing practices (Forbes, 2007) and Dan Cathy calls marriage equality “twisted.” Once you cross the line from free speech to hate speech, people have a right to call you on it. As to the mayors not wanting Cathy’s company in their cities, I think that’s a mistake. Let the consumers boycott or support, but as long as not one penny of tax payer money goes to Chick-Fil-A to build any of their restaurants, no problem. We have enough tax payer funded hate in America, we don’t need any more.
Erin, I value your opinion and try to read all your posts, but you’ve got this one very, very wrong.
I’m an extremely strong and vocal supporter of gay rights and gay marriage. I’ve participated in numerous gay marriages as an active member of the Unitarian Church (we’ve been marrying gays and lesbians long before Rahm Emanuel, Tom Menino or Barack Obama every felt compelled to take a stand on the issue.)
And I strongly support your right to boycott Chick-fil-A and encourage you to do so.
But…. this became a major issue because Tom Menino and Rahm Emanuel and other elected officials decided to hop on a popular band wagon and promise (“guarantee” was a word they often used) to violate the First Amendment to the Constitution and their respective oaths of office and many, many Federal and State and Local Laws to keep Chick-fil-A from opening in their communities.
Real Liberals, including, thankfully, the Editorial Board of The Boston Herald, quickly defended Chick-fil-A, the Cathy family and condemned Tom Menino. To his credit, Mayor Menino did quickly back down.
This is, for me, a simple issue. The minute we allow an elected official to abuse his powers of office to deny licenses for a business based on the religion of the owner, all our freedoms are lost.
I would hate to see the mayor of some southern town vow to keep Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream from being sold because he disagreed with Ben and Jerry.
Some of my gay and lesbian friends were among those dining at Chick-fil-A yesterday and at least one couple will be back on Friday for the “Kiss-In.” You can both support freedom of speech and freedom of religion and LGBT Rights at the same time. In fact you can’t have one without the other.
I know you might often disagree with the conservative, but always insightful, B. Daniel Blatt who writes many of the blog posts over at The Gay Patriot, but I encourage you to read his blog regularly. Here’s his post from yesterday I bought Chick-fil-A’s product; I didn’t buy its owner’s politics
It looked to me like there were a lot more nuts supporting this homophobic business than just the opposite. This is typical of Right Wing God Bangers. First to protest, and last to go home. Liberals just sit on their hands and expect others to do all the work for them.
Not sure what you mean with the liberals sit on their hands comment. I for one do not sit on my hands. I donate time and what money I can to causes and politicians, I try my best to get the truth out with my writing, I fight inequality and hate with every breath in my body. So, really not following the comment about liberals. We got Glenn Beck fired, we got Rush’s advertisers to run like hell, we shut down the 45,000 Moms and NOM’s attempted boycott of J C Penney and Starbucks and we shine a light on the darkness that is the right wing every day.