Cluck off: The battle over Chick-Fil-A

By Mustang Bobby

I watched with bemusement at the people lined up around the block in the U.S. to show their solidarity with Chick-Fil-A on Wednesday. They were exercising their right to clog their arteries and flip off the librul mayors and anti-Christian queers and sodomites. Jesus is Lord with a Lipitor chaser.

I've already made it quite clear that folks who boycott a restaurant because they don't like the company's business model are free to do so, and that mayors of cities who object to the company and their beliefs are going over the line when they say they don't want them in their town. (I have a number of progressive friends who disagree with me on that point. Fine. That's what healthy debate is all about.)

What I find supremely ironic is that the same people who are yammering about the First Amendment and freedom of religion have absolutely no problem whatsoever trampling on the First Amendment rights of my religious denomination -- the Quakers -- to celebrate same-sex marriage. And we're not alone in holding that all couples, regardless of body parts, have the right to live their lives as they see fit in the way they believe was intended for them by whatever god or higher authority -- or none whatsoever. But apparently we need to open a fast-food chain in order to get our message of inclusiveness out there.

The Christians who think they have a monopoly on the morals of America and can dictate them to the rest of us through lung power, television, and high-paid smooth-talking lobbyists are the ones with the problem with the First Amendment, not us. It also should be pretty clear that they see this as some sort of political weapon, ginning up support for right-wing candidates and running with it as if their church is some sort of SuperPAC. That is more of an assault on the Constitution -- not to mention a trivialization of faith and practice -- than any pronouncement by a mayor of a city who momentarily forgets that being a true democrat means you have to put up with sniveling bigots who want to open a business that supports a group that backs homosexual genocide in Uganda.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Chickening out

By Mustang Bobby

I'm not a boycotter. I don't take up arms against a company if they're doing something I don't like, nor do I exhort other people to boycott them. Boycotts rarely work, and a lot of times it gives the company free publicity. It might even backfire. For example, if some odious group like the American Family Association or the Family Research Council is telling the world to boycott Home Depot or Starbucks, I'd probably be inclined to shop there. After all, if they're getting the bigots and Speedo-sniffers upset, they must be doing something right.

Chick-Fil-A is a fast food restaurant chain founded by a fundamentalist Christian, and the company aligns itself with those beliefs, including contributing to anti-gay and anti-marriage equality causes:

In a new interview with the Baptist Press, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy -- the son of company founder S. Truett Cathy -- addresses what the publication describes as his franchise's "support of the traditional family."

Cathy's somewhat glib response: "Well, guilty as charged."

He went on to note, "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that...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 then reiterated his stance during an appearance on "The Ken Coleman Show," Good as You blogger Jeremy Hooper reported.

"I think we are inviting 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' and 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," Cathy said in that interview.

It's their money, their company, and they can do what they like. Far be it from me to impose my beliefs on them. And far be it from me to insult them or embarrass them by giving them any of my money or coming into one of their stores. It would be very un-Quakerly and presumptuous to force them to put up with me and my business. I am sure they are glad to know that, and I am sure they will be even happier when I tell friends and people I know that it would be very bad for Chick-Fil-A and their reputation if a lot of people who think like me or are gay like me were to patronize their stores.

So rejoice, Mr. Cathy; we're not boycotting you. We're doing the Lord's work by staying away and not shaking our fist at God with our money in your stores. Peace. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Sucks to be Arizona 2

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Baby steps...

Crooks and Liars: "Cypress Hill cancels Arizona concert over SB 1070."

Fox News: "Illinois School Nixes Basketball Team's Trip to Arizona Over Immigration Law."

It will take a lot more to isolate Arizona over its draconian anti-immigrant law, but the boycott is still just in its early stages and these are very promising developments.

For more on the boycott, see here.

Sucks to be Arizona

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The beloved Phoenix Suns, now in the NBA's Western Conference finals (and the team I'm now rooting for, mainly because of Steve Nash), don't much care for their state's draconian anti-immigrant law, and, understandably, much of the rest of the country is turning away from Arizona, with the state's tourism industry suffering the brunt:

Arizona took another hit Wednesday as Republicans cast a vote for the home of their 2012 convention. Phoenix made the short list but lost out to Tampa.

It was little surprise to tourism officials in Arizona. Since the state passed the nation's toughest immigration law three weeks ago, its meeting and events business has fallen drastically.

Hispanic civil rights groups are boycotting Arizona and urging others to do the same. Officials at the National Council of La Raza, one of the groups driving the boycott, had privately asked the RNC not to meet in Phoenix.

The city risks losing as much as $90 million in hotel and convention business over the next five years because of the controversy, according to city estimates released Wednesday. The state's hotel and lodging association has counted 23 canceled meetings for a loss of between $6 and $10 million. On Wednesday, Los Angeles became the largest city to join the boycott.

And it gets worse for Arizona. Consider the extent of L.A.'s boycott, which, the L.A. Times reports, includes a ban on "most city travel to Arizona and future contracts with companies in that state."

Hopefully the boycott with continue to grow. (Some) Arizonans may deserve better, but the state deserves to be isolated.

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Meanwhile, Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a new law banning the teaching of ethnic studies courses at state-funded schools. I've never been a big fan of these courses, particularly at the university level, as I agree that they can be divisive and counter-productive, but this goes way too far. And it's yet another law specifically targeting Hispanics.

Arizona may not be Nazi Germany, but it's turning into a reprehensible little shithole of bigotry before our very eyes.

Making sense in the City of Angels

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Hopefully this is the start of a broader movement to isolate Arizona:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday that he supports a boycott of Arizona by the city of Los Angeles, and he called that state's newly passed immigration law "unpatriotic and unconstitutional."

"No person should be treated differently in the eyes of the law," he said at a news conference.

The mayor said boycotts have worked in the past and cited the city's divestiture from South Africa in the 1980s to protest apartheid.

It's never good to be compared to apartheid South Africa, but... if the shoe fits...

Okay, Arizona isn't quite at that level, but I think Councilman Jose Huizar is right: "If you look like me, you should be concerned about traveling to the state of Arizona."

That's not a place with which one should want to do business.