Pointing Fingers

Chick-Fil-A: Munching On Bigotry And Hate With A Side Of Homophobia

Just a few weeks ago, Chick-Fil-A was just another fast food joint, and certainly not one at the center of the marriage equality debate. Sure, activists in the know were well aware of the Christian identified company’s homophobic tendencies as their foundation pumped serious coinage into the coffers of some of the more notoriously and virulently anti-gay entities hell-bent on making people unhappy and actively seeking to deny them their rights (if not torture, bully them or drive them to suicide).

After being confronted about the ramifications of his company’ support for bigotry under the guise of traditional marriage, the company’s president, Dan Cathy — one of those deluded men who genuinely believes his heterosexual propensity for pussy makes him superior somehow, qualifying him to cherry-pick portions of the bible that nourish his hate and bigotry – rather than distance his company from his personally held hatred, declared Chick-Fil-A “guilty as charged.”

The New Civil Rights Movement editor, David Badash, who has been covering the increasingly polarizing issue from the outset, observes the mixed results as “big city mayors from San Francisco to Boston to Chicago to New York have all weighed in on banning Chick-Fil-A from their cities.”

And we can debate whether it’s appropriate for mayors or politicians to get involved, just like we did when politicians decided that despite the American constitution, it was okay to violate the First Amendment rights of Muslim Americans from building a community center in downtown Manhattan because it might irrationally upset people. There’s no harm in them expressing their disgust. Denying Chick-Fil-A permits to do business in the absence of demonstrably prejudicial hiring practices or conduct, however, is an overreaction, and frankly, a big mistake.

Some (my own friends included), flummoxed by the boycott, have been asking questions such as: “Can I eat there without supporting their position?…. like you eating a pork chop doesn’t affect me as a Jew ….and does not make you anti-Semitic.”

You can’t separate the two. Eating a pork chop doesn’t affect anyone other than the eater and the pig (unless you bought the pork chop at Chick-Fil-A).

Christian beliefs — not all, but particularly those selectively applied as relating to sexual orientation, (since adultery and children born out of wedlock or eating shellfish are somehow more forgivable, despite the Bible spelling out equally dire consequences) — are about specifically and deliberately denying rights to a group of people for who they are.

Most believe that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice, and despite it being a legitimate social choice, let’s go with that for now – (think carefully — do you remember choosing to be straight?)

Eating at Chick-Fil-A — actively giving money to and supporting a company that in turn gives significant sums of money to groups that perpetrate ugly and unconscionable acts (like electrocute children showing signs of gender non-conformity, or spread vile and baseless rumors that are so hurtful and damaging to young people, the suicide rate among gay and lesbian teens is significantly higher than those of their straight counterparts), makes you complicit in that, even if that’s not how you feel or what you believe.

Imagine if instead of gay people, Chick-Fil-A decided to give money to organizations that sought to demonize Hispanics and deny them the same rights that everyone else enjoys on simply the way they were born.

Or if their foundation was giving money to anti-Semitic organizations that exported hatred in the form of books and programs to countries like Syria or Saudi Arabia, where they were used to enact legislation that criminalized Judaism and punished those even supporting Jews to long hard prison sentences and the death penalty. Because that’s exactly what the organizations that Chick-Fil-A is actively financing are doing.

So while the President of Chick-Fil-A is entitled to his personal beliefs, as ugly, judgmental and dangerous as they may be, and when confronted about the accusations — in the name of his company — deemed the company “guilty as charged,” he made a choice, and threw down a gauntlet.

And in so doing, he changed the conversation and dynamic from being about whether he is entitled to his own personal beliefs, to actively directing profits from his company to destroy and deny basic rights to a whole group of people, who like everyone else in the country, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, many of whom in the service of their country, and protecting those ideals, are willing to put their lives on the line to ensure them.

And so even if you’re straight and love Chick-Fil-A, you have a choice, and ultimately it requires making a sacrifice. You can’t pretend that spending money there doesn’t support the dangerous organizations that the company actively funds and sponsors.

There’s no way to spin this other than to acknowledge that you’re choosing to support a hateful and dangerous agenda in every bite of a Chicken-Fil-A meal you choose to eat.

And unlike the sexual orientation of the millions Dan Cathy despises and deems himself superior to, the choice is yours.

(This piece was originally published on The New Civil Rights Movement. For comprehensive reporting and opinion on the Chick-Fil-A branding debacle, click here.)

Compassionate Self Obsession

Image by Peter Brandenhoff

Buried children, buried lives
Missing mothers, starving wives
Helpless husbands, desperate sons
Battered brothers, sisters run

Save the Haitans, sing a song
Compassion whoring all night long
Celebrity culture, aren't we fantastic?
Helicopter them cake, give us cash, better plastic

We'll make pages on Facebook
We'll Twitter all day
We'll watch Anderson Cooper
We're the US of A

We'll cry on the treadmills
We can't smell bodies rotting
As the rats eat the corpses
To do lunch, or go shopping?

Weight issues, Tonight Show, terribly sad 
Slim Shakes and earthquakes, Angie and Brad
Heathcare, teabags, grass roots of gold
Corporate personas, democracy' sold

So throw up your breakfast and suck out your fat
Send the starving your calories, simple as that
You won't hear the screams as you hand out your heart
You can still look amazing as it all falls apart

Will power, Devil pacts, Rush Limaugh raving
Economy free falling, the lives we are saving
Feel good, and look bad, or the other way around
When the lens loses focus, will we still hear the sound?

Constructive Enragement

Kids Who Kill Dogs

Not much to say about this loser that hasn’t already been said. The new rising star of the Republican presidential hopefuls is a former governor of Arkansas with a few choice attributes that make him the perfect Republican.

He equates homosexuality with pedophilia and necrophilia (perhaps an association made by spending too much time in Church), refused to retract his absurd 1992 comment that people with AIDS should be quarantined, and is one of those self-appointed soldiers for Christ, to whom the fringes on the religious right gravitate like flies to feces.

As revelation after revelation of the CIA’s torture policies under the Bush administration swirl with headline grabbing attention, Huckabee released a Christmas campaign ad in which he states: "…what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ."

More disturbing are the stories surfacing about his son, demonstrating that his parenting skills are on a par with those of Rudy Giuliani. Aside from an incident in April this year where David Huckabee was arrested at a Little Rock, Arkansas airport after a federal X-ray technician detected a loaded Glock pistol in his carry-on luggage, it appears that Mike Huckabee involved himself in a childhood dog-killing cover-up, the details of which would make Jeffrey Dahmer quiver in delight.

In 1998, David Huckabee was unceremoniously booted out of a Boy Scout camp after, serving as an ideal role model as a counselor, he killed a stray dog that had the terrible fate of wandering onto camp property. So like a good old Southerner, young Huckabee harkened back to his history by literally lynching the dog by hanging it from a tree. Then, for good measure, he slit his throat and stoned him to death. According to Newsweek, the father of another counselor involved in the incident was quoted by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in August 1998 as saying that his son found the dog "hung over a limb and choking."

Defending his son in an interview with Newsweek, Mike Huckabee responded: "There was a dog that apparently had mange and was absolutely, I guess, emaciated." Food and medicine, apparently did not factor into David Huckabee’s twisted mind. And it’s a small wonder mind you, given his propensity to eat. The Boy Scouts, more concerned in the long run with keeping out the gays, quarantine not being an option, rewarded Huckabee by later promoting him to an Eagle Scout.

Mike Huckabee, who, back in 2004, shed an impressive 105 pounds stated regarding his bad eating and exercise habits: “How could I get up there and say, 'People, we've got to do better,' when I was the poster child for everything that was wrong?"

While David, it appears didn’t get the memo, and looks like he could easily lose 105 pounds himself, Mike Huckabee’s divisive and un-Christian like lack of compassion continues to present him as the poster boy for everything that is wrong.

As President, would he do as fantastic a job for America as he’s done raising his children?

Hopefully we never find out.

My Tenth Anniversary!!!

In the last few months, I’ve been invited to a wedding, an anniversary, a baby shower, a baby naming, a birthday party for a two-year-old, a bat mitzvah, a bar mitzvah and an engagement party.

While these have all been friends and family, and people who I love dearly, I couldn’t help but think back to an old Sex in the City episode, where Carrie Bradshaw faced the same quandary I faced as these occasions arose. Each joyous occasion required a gift, some of them providing registries to make my gift-giving decisions that much easier.

As gay marriage becomes legal in more and more jurisdictions and a variety of methods allow gay people to adopt or procreate their own children, the fundamental issue remains the same. People make choices, and society dictates that those choices are rewarded in the form of lavish gifts being bestowed on the merit of those choices.

As one of the lucky invitees, I have been excoriated for missing certain occasions, and been forced to humbly apologize for failing to make an adequate effort to drop everything I’m doing in my life to attend and share in the celebrations of others.

I haven’t been in a long-term relationship, by design, for the last ten years. Since I generally believe that the best relationships last somewhere between four and eight hours, I couldn’t possibly count how many I’ve had, but suffice to say, I enjoy these relationships at least three or four times a week. The break-ups are relatively drama-free, and are usually on good terms, so much so that now and again, there are even repeats.

Unfortunately, this four hour rule doesn’t allow for the appropriate well wishing. There are no engagement parties, no weddings, no children and no anniversaries. Given the numbers, it would be horribly unfair on all my friends and relatives if I was to expect reinforcement in the way of gifts every time I began one of these relationships.

Since most people would qualify me as single, I began to think of the ramifications. My choosing to be single is a perfectly legitimate social choice. When I made the decision to refrain from long-term relationships, I forfeited the opportunity for my friends and family to celebrate my choice. There have been no registries, no toasters, no fabulous silverware, or any of the items that are usually given to help sustain a new relationship. As my siblings married, they were given gifts designed to strengthen their bonds, but really just saved them having to go out and buy a bunch of shite for the house. I never received anything, despite my household being just as plagued by bachelorhood, and just as capable of benefiting from many of the same upgrades, simply because I've chosen to avoid contractually binding myself to a long-term, supposedly monogomous nuclear family structure.

About fifteen years ago, I helped out my sister who had recently purchased a puppy, but was thwarted from giving it the appropriate attention owing to her work schedule. I ended up looking after the dog, and falling in love with her. She brought me more joy and happiness than I ever could have dreamed at the time, up until her passing earlier this year. However, she had needs, from babysitting to medical needs.

Through the years there were veterinary bills, grooming bills, (and her separation anxiety, which kept me at home far more often that I might have been otherwise). But when she turned twelve, there was no batmitzvah celebration (although admittedly, she wasn’t raised as a Jewish dog).

Whether this was the original intent, bat and bar mitzvahs, like confirmations and sweet sixteen parties, are designed to provide the youngsters with nest eggs for their futures. My sweet little dog, despite her sometimes naughty and reckless behavior, made it to twelve, and although there would be medical issues in her later years, she didn’t receive anything to celebrate her passage into adulthood, or provide her (or me) with security for what lay ahead.

My decision to remain unmarried and to not have children so far has had a significant impact on the environment. I haven’t contributed to diapers in landfills, nor consumed unimaginable quantities of detergents, water and energy had I used cotton instead. Because I haven’t had to drive my kids to school and extramural activities, I have reduced my carbon footprint, and have played a small part in reducing over-population.

As I’ve watched people who were, and remain, ill-equipped to rear children receive positive reinforcement for their decisions, from celebratory toasts to receiving deeds on houses, I have received woefully inadequate reinforcement, if not outright discouragement, for my decisions and choices.

In my failure to marry and rear children, I have pursued a career as an artist and photographer. My exhibitions have required insane amounts of preparation and are usually exorbitant in terms of production costs. They have taken me from San Francisco to Beijing, from New York to Miami. Yet the importance of these milestones in my life is no match for a child is turning three, or a couple who have remained in a boring, loveless relationship for fifteen years. How dare I expect anyone to drop what they’re doing in their mundane lives to attend the opening of an exhibition, when they’re preparing for their son’s baby-naming, for which I dare not fail to show up, or at least send a gift?

I have decided this year, to celebrate my tenth anniversary of being uninvolved in a long-term relationship, and for neither creating nor adopting children. I will be inviting family members and friends, across the globe, to join in the celebration, and will be registering at my favorite stores all the items that will make my life easier based on the choices I’ve made.

I’ve made it. Ten years on my own. My choice. And now I demand my rewards!