Chicken, Crow or Fox?

There has been a medium-grade shitstorm in the media lately. HUGE surprise, I know. This current cesspool swirls around a fast-food chain known as Chick-fil-A (CFA). CFA is a $4 billion/year company run by the very devout Cathy family of Atlanta, GA. These folks are one of two major retail outlets that are closed on Sundays that I am aware of, the other being furniture store RC Willey. According to the biography of company president Dan Cathy, as displayed on the company's website, CFA's corporate purpose is: "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A."

Makes it sound like god wants you have that 16 grams of fat and 1400 milligrams of sodium in a 440 calorie sandwich, don't it? Selling fast food and buying into the god fantasy are no big deal, but it turns out that the Cathy family doesn't exactly want to keep their beliefs to themselves. Mr. Cathy appeared on a GA radio show and made the following statement:

"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,'" Cathy said. "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." 

Please forget for a moment the prideful, arrogant attitude inherent in that statement. Or not. The fact that Mr. Cathy truly believes that his version of god can dictate to ANYONE the definition of ANYTHING is ludicrous. Cue the shitstorm. Those of us that support marriage equality are cheesed that the president of a major American company would behave like that in public. Are we not in the 21st century, rather than the 19th? Have we not progressed beyond such xenophobia? Did you not get that memo, Mr. Cathy?

The plot thickens when you find out that the officers of CFA are also the officers of the WinShape Foundation. CFA gives millions to WinShape. WinShape gives millions to groups like Focus on the Family to help in their crusades against abortion and marriage equality. Supporters of the LGBT population started calling for boycotts and the conservative media cried foul!

In an interview with Fixed Noise, no less a literary light than the former half-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, leapt to the defense of CFA. She said, "Well, that calling for the boycott is a real -- has a chilling effect on our 1st Amendment rights".  Liberal politicians are inviting CFA to stay away from their locales and social media is raging with the debate. The Constant Reader knows how I stand on the issue. For a refresher just look here or here. You also know I can smell a rat a mile away, and that's just what I smell here.

While the Net and the media burned with debate, CFA held their annual "Appreciation Day". It appears to be a promotion where you can get free product if you dress like a cow (the company mascot), and other prizes are given away. With all this free publicity swirling around, guess who reported "world record" sales on that day? Survey SAYS... Chick-fil-A!

That brings me to the title of this missive. Did Dan Cathy show his ass by insisting that his god has the undisputed right to define marriage? Absolutely! Will he be forced to eat crow one day when this nation comes to its' senses on equality for all? I sincerely hope so. Did CFA make a metric butt-load of money over the past week thanks to a shitstorm of free publicity? Damn right. Crazy like a fox.

One step forward, one step back...

It is the morning after the most historic election in American history. I rejoice with my nation for its' selection of the first non-white President-elect but I am ashamed of my state for its' narrow approval of bigotry and hatred. Barack Obama will be our next President, but California gays and lesbians have been relegated to second-class citizenship by the forces of ignorance.

Barack Obama won the Presidential election by over 7 million popular votes and smashed John McCain in the Electoral College 349-173 (North Carolina is STILL too close to call), exceeding the expectations of everyone except the folks at FiveThirtyEight.com whose last prediction was 348.6-189.4! Senator McCain showed all the class that his campaign never did in his concession and President-elect Obama (Doesn't that sound COOL?) gave an acceptance speech that gave me chills. I think the best picture of the night was Rev. Jesse Jackson, without shame or embarrassment, openly crying for joy when the election was called. Calling yesterday historic is the understatement of the century.

My joy was tempered with sorrow when the results for Proposition 8 were released in California. With nearly 10 million ballots counted, the forces of bigotry, hatred and intolerance outnumbered the side of equality for all by just over 420,000 votes. The news here is reporting plans that the "Yes on 8" people are going to go to the courts to have the thousands of perfectly legal same-sex marriages performed in the fleeting moment of equality in California ANNULLED! Not satisfied with successfully gaining legal cachet for marital apartheid, the scared and ignorant want to re-write the past that doesn't fit into their world view. This issue has moved me back to disgusted.

The message that I draw from all this is that while we have, for the most part, moved beyond race as a nation there is still bigotry to be fought in America. We will only be a nation of equals when no one group's fears and hatreds are manifest in our laws. We took a step yesterday, but we aren't there yet.

Into the political maelstrom

It is election season, as you all know unless you've been off-planet or under a rock. In addition to the most important presidential election in several generations (more on that later), there is Congress to decide. Most states have various measures on the ballot, and we here in California have an major issue of basic human rights to decide.

A while back, Gavin Newsome (San Francisco's mayor) and the S.F. City Council decided that there was nothing in the California State Constitution that stated that applicants for a marriage license had to be of opposing genders, and ordered the Clerk to act accordingly. The swarm of gay and lesbian couples that obtained marriage certificates, finally equal in the eyes of the law, was nothing sort of astounding. Needless to say, the social conservatives filed suit, the process was stopped and the couples that took advantage of an all too short window immediately filed a countersuit. The California Supreme Court, in one of its' wiser decisions, overturned a previous initiative that tried to limit marriage to heterosexuals only as unconstitutional and Proposition 8 was born. Proposition 8 will alter the California constitution to state that marriage is only legal between one man and one woman.

Since then we have heard how "the will of the voters was overturned" and "churches will be sued over their beliefs" and "gay marriage will be taught in schools" and a metric buttload of other crap about how "marriage has to be defended". The enemy of marriage is not MORE marriage, it is DIVORCE! If you want to "defend" marriage, outlaw divorces. The murder rate will jump, but what can I say.

Why on earth should a loving, committed couple be prevented from all the advantages of a civil marriage, regardless of gender bias? The religious folk say that "God wouldn't approve". Got some news that you won't want to hear, bible-thumpers. Freedom of religion also includes freedom FROM religion. Just because the god-fearing sheep think that non-believers will burn in an imaginary hell does NOT allow them to mold our society to their beliefs. A marriage is not legal until the paperwork is filed with the government, no matter how many god salesmen say otherwise.

I've been married to Cathy for over eight wonderful years. She is not my first wife. My previous marriages ended for different reasons, but not one of them ended because of successful gay and lesbian couples. If two people want to unite their lives they should get all the advantages that the traffic will bear, regardless of whether they are male, female or one of each.

Civil unions aren't the answer either. "Separate, but equal" has never worked and is unconstitutional. There is not now and has never been enough love in the world. Who are we to judge where two consenting adults find it? Folks, I urge you to support equality for everyone. There is NO rational reason why a gay or lesbian couple shouldn't enjoy the same legal benefits AND responsibilities that Cathy and I enjoy. There is also no reason why those couples shouldn't enjoy the same protections that are afforded to those allowed to marry legally.

We say that we are a tolerant society of equals. Prove it. Vote no on Proposition 8 if you are in California and back similar measures if you aren't. Predjudice is illegal. Don't legalize it.