Chick-fil-A: The False Equivalence

Supporters of Chick-fil-A would have people believe that they are just folks making a choice on one side of an issue and enjoy equal standing. They will often add gratuitous flourishes about their rights to "free speech" and to disagree with "homosexual activists." It is intellectually dishonest hokum.

Only one "side" is impacted     either way! The only people affected by marriage equality (or inequality) are gay couples and their children. Chick-fil-A, and the family that owns it, remain unaffected.


Even from a religious perspective, anti-equality campaigners have been unable to demonstrate any connection of marriage equality to an erosion of religious liberty. When Chick-fil-A donates millions of dollars to organizations bent on restricting our civil rights, what benefit do they derive from doing so? Let us assume the inevitable, that national marriage equality is the law of the land, where do fundamentalist Christians stand? Exactly where is the moral compromise?

• They are free to practice their religion as they choose.
• They are free to rail against homosexuality.
• They are free not to consecrate same-sex marriages.
• They are free not to marry someone of the same sex.
• They are free not to rejoice     or even like     same-sex marriage.

As I have demonstrated numerous times, marriage equality has no bearing on who is raising which children. Stating otherwise is just a devious campaign tactic. Similarly, "gay marriage will be taught in school" is untrue. And, by the way, so what? I spoke with an aged  conservative rabbi recently who said "I don't approve of gay marriage. I also don't approve of mixing meat and dairy."

Even the "horrors" that NOM has been trotting out since their "Gathering Storm" debacle (like the wedding photographer in New Mexico) have nothing to do with gay marriage in states that recognize same-sex marriage.

According to our Constitution, laws in this country must have a secular purpose. NOM has failed to demonstrate what that secular purpose is in a federal court.

Chick-fil-A is headquartered in Atlanta where they are prohibited by local ordinance from discriminating based on domestic relationship status, sexual orientation or gender identity. This applies to both employment and service in their stores which are a public accommodation (I believe that most of the stores are independently owned franchises). That ordinance is already  in effect.