Chick-Fil-Why

I'm truly of two minds about the current Chick-Fil-A/gay-marriage uproar. It's not just because their nuggets and waffle fries are delicious or that the company is supporting some hateful organizations. It isn't even that the idea of turning lunch into a political statement - one way or the other - seems vaguely ridiculous. It's more about whether all this energy and effort could be better directed.

As much as I believe in economic actions as a means to express contempt for a company whose actions disturb you, I have to wonder what the protests and counter-protests are really accomplishing. Neither side is likely to convince the other of anything and, while it's unclear whether the debate is helping or hurting the company itself, the rank-and-file employees have become the recipients of verbal abuse pretty much just for being there. If the goal here is truly to celebrate human dignity, I feel like we can do better. Let's put aside the question of whether we should patronize Chick-Fil-A due to their corporate support of anti-gay groups, because the truth is we probably shouldn't patronize them anyway. We live in a country where (to borrow from Charles Dickens) want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices, not to mention one with a significant obesity problem. If we really want to take Chick-Fil-A to task, we should use the money you would have spent there and/or the time you would have spent protesting them to support a local food pantry. My own group of choice is called Olney Help, but these organizations are all over and severely stretched for resources these days, because the need is so much greater than it was even a few years ago. For that matter, I would put the same notion in front of "supporters" of Chick-Fil-A as well, as I recall from Sunday School that some dude in the New Testament said a lot more about caring for the poor than he did about who should be able to get married, let alone where they should eat.