Thursday, August 2, 2012

PDA at CFA. NFW.


For 11 years Democrats have been bristling at President Bush’s comments that if you aren’t siding with the United States in the war on terror, you’re siding with the terrorists.  For all their bluster and complaints that the world is not a binary place with only two choices, people on the left sure do embrace that ideology with all their might.

Take the whole Chick-Fil-A dust up.  To hear the media and the political left's version, CEO Dan Cathy must have said he hates gays, wants them killed, cut up, breaded and fried in giant vats of peanut oil.  How DARE he express such hatred!!  Except...that's.  Not.  What. Happened.

What did he say?  Brace yourselves, because the hate is about to pour out of him in this quote:

"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." 

I can practically hear him goose-stepping while he said that, can't you?

Now, the gay community has taken offense to these statements and Cathy has been forever branded as "anti-gay" by the media.  (note to the media - while you've been so dutifully reporting on how hateful being married one's first wife is, the economy has continued to suck.  Just FYI.).  It never fails to amaze me, though I guess it should by now, how the left will use any excuse to get their causes into the public eye.  Of course the gays are offended by his statements - because everything is all about the gays, right?  If you think about it, I have more right to be offended by Cathy's statements than the gays do, because I am married to my second wife.  What, Cathy, you think you're better than me because you haven't been divorced?  Well screw you, man!

Seriously, this gets to the root of what's rubbing me raw about this whole situation.  As much as ABC and NBC and the DNC may wish otherwise, we still live in America, where we have a right to freely practice our religion and openly express our opinions.  What we do not have the right to do is try to FORCE our opinions on other people.  We can disagree, we can debate, but in the end, people will say what they want to say, and that's one of the greatest things about this country!  Dan Cathy did not force his beliefs on anyone.  First of all, he was asked for his opinion, he didn't volunteer it.  And when he answered,  he responded to the question with an honest answer.  He didn't say that people who believe otherwise should change their opinions to match his.  He didn't say he was anti-gay.  He didn't say Chick-Fil-A's corporate policy is anti gay-marriage.  In a followup interview he did say "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 try to redefine what marriage is about."  Notice how he opens with "I think" not "everyone should think."  Certainly, he looks askance on our current societal mores, but it's clearly expressed as his belief, not anyone else's.  And he's praying for us.  Gosh; how evil can you get?

So, since this is America, and he has a right to express his opinion, the rational response must be to...get media coverage whipped up, boycott his stores and try to force him out of business, right?  Because that's what we do to people who have different beliefs, we crush them and make them pay so that we scare any other free thinking individuals into silence!  First Amendment be damned!!

Only, it turns out that hundreds of thousands of people nationwide decided to challenge that notion by uniting for a day and spending hours in line to get their hands on some delicious bits of chicken.  I went to Chick-Fil-A yesterday for breakfast, but then I go there 2 or 3 times a week anyway.  I did want to make a point to put my coin in the coffer though, because I respect the right to express an opinion without fear of repercussion.  For me it wasn't about gay marriage at all.  As an aside, I frankly wonder why the government is even involved in determining who can and can't get married in the first place.  Marriage licensing was started to keep blacks from marrying whites, by the way, so it's outlived it's odious original purpose.  In my view this falls under the auspices of expecting Congress to pass more laws to fix the ones they've already passed that don't work rather than just getting rid of the offending law.  But rather than direct their ire at Daddy Government, the vocal gay community attacks a businessman whose company has never refused service to a gay, has no policy against gays, and will gladly serve their delicious chicken to any gay who wants it (oh, the injustice...wait, um, never mind).  So I ate a chicken biscuit yesterday in support of the first amendment, not in support of traditional marriage.  If I disagreed with Cathy (which I don't) I would still eat his delicious chicken because his company is not violating my constitutional rights.  If he banned concealed carry in his stores, I would stop going there because that policy would attack the 2nd amendment.  But he's done nothing other than state his opinion, and good on him for not being intimidated into silence.

This Friday, gays are staging a 'kiss in' - where a bunch of gays are supposedly going to go to CFAs across the country to make out in the store while people try to eat.  ABC has said that Friday's protest "promises to be the more visible" of the two protests, which is entirely possible since news affiliates have chosen not to cover the pro-CFA appreciation event on the grounds that it's not really a protest.  Tea Party people should be used to this; the media and 4 year old children use the same tactic of "if I close my eyes the monster will go away."  Children, at least, don't know any better.  The media should, as usual, be ashamed of itself for it's bias.

I have a suggestion for the gays...if you want to win people to your side of a debate, don't go out of your way to gross them out.  I don't like seeing straights make out in public, let alone you guys.  What you're going to do is get people who don't have much exposure to the gay community to start believing that you have no real message, and that for gays it's all about sex.  And maybe it is, I don't know - but I had heard somewhere that gays were just like straights - they go to work, they pay taxes, they watch sports, and that who they go to bed with is no one's business.  You're not exactly winning the "we're just like you' argument by staging mass PDAs across the country like a bunch of rabbits that can't control their libidos.  But then again - if you were treated like everyone else there'd be nothing to protest, would there, and where's the fun in that?  In the end, maybe THAT is the point.

All of this makes me want to re-watch PCU.