The Good Guys Win One!

Breaking News: It would appear that Gay rights are Human Rights after all! Recent reports seem to indicate that gay rights activists’ boycotts of Chick Fil-A restaurants, as well as pressure from individual lawmakers, may have produced their desired result. The restaurant chain, known mostly for its Southern fried chicken sandwiches (and creepy cow mascot) and more recently for funding groups that would deny Gay Americans the same rights as their straight counterparts, has apparently come to the decision that it will no longer fund  organizations that oppose marriage equality. ABC News reports:

After weeks of negotiations with [Northwest Chicago] city Alderman Joe Moreno, the fast-food restaurant agreed to take “a much closer look” at which groups receive donations from the WinShape Foundation, a non-profit created by the Cathy family and funded almost entirely by Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A, the company told Moreno.

“The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas,” Chick-fil-A’s senior director of real estate said in a letter to Moreno…

When ABC requested clarification from Chick-fil-A on the policies Moreno claims are new, the company re-sent a statement from July, when the controversy over it’s traditional marriage support first erupted.

“The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect -regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender,” Chick-fil-A spokeswoman Tracey Micit said in the statement. “Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

So all-in-all this is great news for anyone who believes in the dignity of human beings, respects the rights of people to be themselves and live their own lives without government interference, and honors every person’s right to travel his or her own path in the pursuit of happiness.

17 Comments

I guess they really wanted that Chicago Franchise.

I wonder how Huckabee and Santorum and the rest of the No-Homo Brigade is going to take this news after their eat chicken for No-Homo day.

Does this mean I can stop giving the stink eye/throwing shade at oblivious otherwise supporting straight friends who even mention within my earshot that they ate at Chick-fil-A?

@ManchuCandidate:

I guess they’ll just have to eat crow from now on.

They will still put bible verses on their packaging … fuck ’em.

@blogenfreude: So does In-N-Out. I don’t care either way, but if that’s your standard, then you shouldn’t give them your money either.

@mellbell: Oh wait – think I got my Jeebus-crazy fast-food purveyors mixed up. Whatevs …

How does a place like In-N-Out call itself a Christian business with a name like that?

@matador1015:

They used to be In-N-Out, Missionary position with the lights out. But shortened the name when they realized it was almost impossible to put out a 30 decent second TV spot that way.

@Mistress Cynica: I missed you, too! I just got in late Monday from two and a half weeks in Europe (five nights in Barcelona, 9 nights in the Dolomites for class, 1 night in Venice, and 24 unscheduled hours in London), and I’m still so jet-lagged that I’m only semi-conscious and completely unsnarkable. Yesterday was both my first day back at work AND the first day of class for Fall Quarter.

I didn’t really have internet access while I was away–it was like 1 Euro for 15 minutes in Italy and each page took two to three minutes to load–so I’m just now getting caught up on the nooz.

Apparently there’s been a major row over Royal Tatas. Best headline from one of those lurid, sleazy, British tabs: “Grin and Bare It!”

P.S. Welcome to Italy–even the joggers are smoking.

30 odd years ago, In-N-Out Burgers used to give away a small rectangular bumper sticker which everyone I knew immediately modified by clipping the edges, removing the “B” and the “rs”, leaving a perfect “In-N-Out urge” bumper sticker. It took them many years for them to change to their present oval bumper sticker which is not so easily/undetectably modified.

There were thousands of “In-N-Out urge” stickered cars driving around Las Vegas.

Boy, were we easily amused when young.

@jaycubed: We had those in L.A., mostly on the back of pickup trucks.

For years the dearly departed local record store in Louisville, ear X-tacy, gave out bumper stickers which could be cut up and rearranged to spell all manner of things. The best I ever heard of using all the letters in one sticker was cat aXery. (Never mind that axery isn’t a word — it just works somehow.) I preferred to forge new letters out of the existing ones, and ended up with a sticker in which only the E and Ts were original.

I didn’t want to pee on the parade but this was never verified by Chick Fill-A and has just now been repudiated by Dan Cath-E.

Personally I felt this to be one of the most trivial skirmishes in the amoral triviality of the culture wars. I personally couldn’t care less who stuffs their face with chicken flesh ripped from the carcasses of sentient animals whose lives were framed by torture. Have we heard that Border Collies are reckoned to be as intelligent as 3 year olds? And if we doubt that poultry have a brain then come and meet our local flock of turkeys that roam the woods. Last summer when the dogs were staging a riot I let them out without realizing that they had seen a hen with her three growing chicks. It was only later, when I saw her searching in the long grass, that I saw that the dogs had torn her chicks to pieces and that she was searching for them. Dogs being dogs they gloated and boasted of what they had done but I, not being intimately acquainted with birds, could only regret the bad luck involved. Which is what I think of when I hear of Chick Fill whatever. I truly cannot get hard for it.

Yes, I am almost a saint. And yes, the flock is fine. I saw them yesterday. When the dogs chase the adults they fly up into the trees.

Add a Comment
Please log in to post a comment