Rise of the Chicken Hawks

In the course of human events, people strive to get upset about stupid shit that affects them not in the least. There's no shortage of examples of that, and if I started listing them, I'd likely never be able to stop.

That's especially true of social issues. For the most part, you can see an inverse proportion of how pissed somebody gets over a given issue and how little it impacts their day-to-day life. And that's true of conservatives and liberals.

I came out in support of gay marriage all the way back in 2004 and there was no end to the stupid arguments I had with "small-government" conservatives about it. They seemed to like that the government approved of their lifestyle choices and decidedly didn't want to share in the goodies the government loaded down the tax code to favour them with.

My position is that the goddamned tax code should have nothing at all to do with how you live your life. Ideally, it would raise revenue to fund the fucking government and that's it. Conservatives, as a general rule, are lying out their asses when they decry "social engineering" by the government. In actual fact, they're pissed about social engineering contrary to their personal beliefs. They ignore the fundamental fact that a government that endorses your lifestyle today can just as easily oppose it tomorrow.

If nothing else, liberals are at least honest about wanting the government to get all up in your shit. I despise almost everything they believe, but I at least respect their honesty about it. Social conservatives tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths about the role of government.

Of course, liberals are also lifestyle hypocrites, as I learned when I publicly endorsed polygamy in the Bountiful case in British Columbia. Then I got to read all about how polygamy "goes too far." "involves coercsion" (ignoring entirely that almost all of the elements of said coercsion are already against the law,) and is generally icky. Those assholes actually sounded exactly like Rick Santorum. So fuck them.

In a roundabout way, that brings me to the latest clusterfuck surrounding Chick-fil-A and gay marriage. Even though I hadn't even heard of Chick-fil-A before last week, everybody seems to have an opinion about this, so I guess I should too. All things being equal, I'd rather not. But I know that you teenagers expect me to as timely as last week's headlines.

From calls for a boycott to pledges of support, Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy’s recent comments supporting traditional marriage have prompted strong reactions from groups on both sides of the issue.

Cathy’s remarks earlier this week to a Baptist website, in which he affirmed the Atlanta-based company’s belief in “the biblical definition of the family unit,” went viral Wednesday. Supporters and opponents of gay unions immediately weighed in.

“We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles,” Cathy told the Baptist Press.

You know what annoys me more than anything else about religious types? The fact that they don't seem to understand what the "biblical principles" they support actually are.

What those people support are Leave it Beaver principles on marriage, not biblical ones. Marriage in biblical times (and in many societies even today) are little more than property transfers. You'd give some dude something, usually livestock, and you'd get his daughter. And if you croaked, your brother got her. Under "biblical principles," if you get caught raping a virgin, you're stuck with her because no other man will have her.

Chick-fil-A's president, Don Cathy made a great to-do about their being "married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that." I'm sure that no one gives more thanks to God for that than Mrs. Cathy, since "biblical principles" about divorce are quite a bit like what you see in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The same books of the Bible that "define marriage" also have some fascinating things to say about eating shellfish and working on the Sabbath, which is actually Saturday, not Sunday. Don't believe me? Look at a calender. Notice where the seventh day falls?

Folks, I could give a shit about your biblical principles. All I ask is that you be consistent about living them yourselves before you bother anyone else with them. If you believe that your Book is the unchallengeable Word of God, don't be so selective about which parts of it define you as a person.

Mr. Cathy, along with most social conservatives, would be a whole lot more honest if they just said that they don't like queers very much. I'd respect them a lot more if they did that, instead of hiding behind a Bible that they clearly don't understand or follow in it's totality.

Lookee, I'm as unequivocal about free speech as you can get. You can say the craziest shit imaginable, and I'll at least support your right to say it. That decidedly doesn't mean that I won't call you a fucking moron, but I won't call for the goddamned government to step in and shut you up.

On the other hand, gays and mouthy liberals do have the right to be offended and not patronize your establishment once you get overly uppity about things that don't involve your corporate mission statement. Let's be clear about one thing, the only reason for Dan Cathy to create this public shitstorm was to play to the "Come to Jesus" crowd. It's a marketing move, pure and simple. There's simply no other reason for Mr. Cathy to have issued the statement he did.

I don't know how I'd react to this if Chick-fil-A operated in Canada. From what the great Jay Batman tells me, the food is delicious. But their message is offensive precisely because it's so moronic and transparently commercialized to appeal to a segment of the market. I'd prefer that my money not support that horseshit, but everybody loves them some fried chicken!

Here's an idea. Let's stop pretending that Don made a moral decision - which he didn't have to dedicate corporate funds and resources toward - rather than a calculated political and business one instead. The evidence does seem to support that.

As a general rule, I don't like organized boycotts. They tend to be every bit as annoying as the thing being protested in the first place, and the leaders of them tend to be hysterical assholes. Protesters of all political stripes tend to overwhelm their own message (and the one that they're protesting in the first fucking place) with their own ignorant assholery.

If gays, and people like me who support their marriage rights, quietly decided to stay away from Chick-fil-A, I couldn't help but support them. They too have speech and commercial rights. But I know that they won't be grating dickheads about it. That's the nature of politically-driven protests. They just can't help themselves, which is too bad.

But don't think you'll accomplish all that much. Chick-fil-A is a franchise operation, so you'll be hurting independent business people who could very well sympathize with you (and me.) Put them out of business and Chick-fil-A just resells the location to someone more inclined to their viewpoint. Trust me, you won't like the way that turns out. And I'm guessing that Mr. Cathy knows that if Chick-fil-A was an owned and operated business, he would've shut the fuck up. He's not gambling his money in this, which is why I think he's a coward.

Here's where I do have a problem, and one much greater than than the one I have with a restaurant that I hadn't heard of before last week.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told the Boston Herald he would work to block Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in the city. “You can’t have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population,” Menino said.

Bullshit!

There's no evidence whatsoever that Chick-fil-A is "discriminating" against anyone in their business practices, at least not in a way that is applicable under current law. Even though they pretend that they're not, the Cathy family and Chick-fil-A are engaging in political speech.

I can independently choose where I eat fried chicken. I cannot choose to boycott the fucking government. So, when given the choice between supporting the right to engage in speech that I find repugnant and the overwhelming power of the state to suppress said speech, I'll always support the individual right to speech. Each and every time.

In this case, the people of Boston aren't even being given the chance boycott Chick-fil-A because cunts like Menino presume to make it  for them. And that's far more egregious than anything that Don Cathy or Dan Savage can ever do.

My personal opinion is that religion is superstitious, silly and unsupported by empirical evidence, which faith is supposed to be. But the government has the power to compel in ways that religion just doesn't in modern Western societies. I've shown that the Cathy family doesn't know their own fucking Bible half as well as they think they do. But it isn't the government's job to police that.

I'm not going to pretend that social conservatives wouldn't be every bit as hot and bothered if if Chick-fil-A supported gay marriage against their personal beliefs because I know that they would. That, however, is a matter of personal hypocrisy that I never tire of pointing out.

One way or another, the market will deal Chick-fil-A. It is not the function of the government, under Tom Menino or any other shithead, to do so unless they've clearly violated an existing law.

This is why people hate liberals. Whenever there's an issue that reasonable people are dying to get together with them on, they find a way to fuck it up. They make a noisy, stupid fucking spectacle of themselves and, within 72 hours, they insert the government where it doesn't belong.

The very people who are the loudest about stopping bullying are those who would use the unmatchable power of the state to bully dissent into submission.


Special thanks to Popehat and Screed of Momus.