Chick-Fil-Ahole

"Families are very important to our country. And they're very important to those of us who are concerned about being able to hang on to our heritage. We support Biblical families, and they've always been a part of that."

Jesus, can't anybody see the logical disconnect between families being important and the right of some Bible pounding chicken plucker to interfere with the civil rights of his fellow citizens?  Freedom is important too and sure as hell, this kind of religion doesn't support freedom and has spent centuries killing people for thinking and acting free.

Well I guess not and it's just another example of how religion poisons everything; corrupts the critical faculties and undermines democracy.  Yes, it's Chicken Man Dan again "supporting Biblical Families" with a carefully extracted and deep fried opinion from a few extracts from the Greek section added on to the Hebrew Bible in the 4th Century CE.  

Tradition does not convey a right, particularly a right to interfere with freedom, nor does one "tradition" have the right to declare itself official in this free country any more than the smell of frying birds conveys wisdom or power or decency. 

So what about Lot's family, Abraham's family and all those Biblical examples of polygamy, romps in the sack with the serving girls, mistreatment of women, selling one's daughters into slavery and prostitution and the like?  Never mind.

Look, there's nothing that can't be supported by that pile of political hogwash written, edited, redacted and selected by ancient bastards greedy for power and that isn't being used by their smiling, Jesus plated contemporary imposters like Dan Cathy.  To be sure, he has the protected right to be an asshole, to act like he's got some special insight, to justify his petty, arrogant, small minded opinions about chicken plucking with what he calls the Bible and I call a fraud,  Indeed that's much more of a "heritage" than gay bashing, that horrible compilation of ancient ignorance having been used for every ill purpose including slavery, destruction of Native cultures and the burning of innocent women in this sad country.  And of course I have the right to call him any name I like, now that he's a public figure.

I have the right, as an American, to call him a malicious and ignorant and self-righteous idiot and we all have the right to take our hunger for greasy chicken to KFC or to that vacant lot a mile from here where they sell home made chicken, barbecue, greens, black beans and rice on the weekends and where they have a smile for everybody and mind their own goddamned Christian business.

"Chick-Fil-A Doesn't belong in Boston," says Mayor Thomas Menino. " you can't have a business in the City of Boston that discriminates against the population . . . and we're not going to have a company, Chick-Fil-A, or whatever the hell their name is, on our Freedom Trail."

Me neither, Mayor -- me neither. 

Bigotry Isn't Only a Southern Brew

I'm a native North Carolinian and my state turned to the dark side this past Tuesday, voting to amend our state constitution to prohibit gay marriage, indeed any type of union other than a so-called traditional marriage between a man and a woman. I don't know if that means in the tradition of Kim Kardashian or if those who voted for the amendment have something a bit bit longer in mind before it counts as a marriage.


I voted against the amendment as did all the people with whom I'm still speaking. I have no patience with bigotry of any sort and there is no rational basis for such beliefs. The "I'm entitled to my opinion" argument doesn't fly with me. I'm entitled to discontinue all association with you if you choose to be a bigot.


However it is not my intent to rant about bigotry in this post. 


I am disturbed at a trend that I've spotted among quite a few non-southern folks to declare this anti-gay marriage bigotry to be a southern problem. It's not that I mind well deserved criticism directed at my state for the recent vote to add legalized discrimination to our state constitution. I am disturbed because as long as it's the other guy who is responsible then we avoid uniting in a collective effort to dismantle these laws as in clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  History is littered with denials of rights up to and including genocide in which everyone says, "Who me? I didn't approve of it. It was ________." (fill in the blank).


Thirty-one states have amended their constitutions to declare that marriage is between a man and a woman. Unless the South has cloned itself, this problem extends way beyond the south. 

Only the gray states lack an amendment prohibiting gay marriage.

It was particularly disturbing to read one person's comment, on a blog post about NC's recent vote, asserting that she lived in Virginia and would not set foot in NC because of the passage of Amendment One. Virginia already has a constitutional amendment preventing gay marriage. It's as if the country has been asleep since around 2004 when state legislatures began amending state constitutions to enshrine bigotry as legal.


What NC has done is draw attention to this problem yet again. By the way. Minnesota plans to vote on this issue in November 2012. I'm not good at geography, but I'm pretty certain that Minnesota is not in the south. Only six states and the District of Columbia allow same sex marriages as of May 2012. Wikipedia has a good article identifying which states have passed anti-gay marriage amendments and the effect of those amendments that is accurate up until May 2012. It includes NC's recent vote.


Until we face the reality that bigotry knows no geographical boundaries, we're simply going to engage in periodic indignation when homophobia slaps us in the face, blame it on the south and then go on about our business, secure in the myth that only those other people practice bigotry. Thirty-one states down, only 19 more to go. This is a national issue, not a southern one and we need a national strategy to address it.