This is not about chicken. And it's not about cake. It's not about free speech, and it's not about the Bible. This is about fear, and prejudice, and bigotry. This is about basic human decency.
Back in the early 1900s, women were discriminated against. We couldn't vote. We weren't encouraged to become educated, or to work for pay. Our role was defined by the husband, the children, and the home. If our husbands beat us, if our dates abused us, we kept silent, because that's what was done. All of this, simply because we were born female.
Back in the mid-1900s, black people were discriminated against. They were forced to go different schools than white people, to use different drinking fountains, to sit, most famously, at the back of the bus. The KKK sent its "message" of death with some regularity in its ongoing effort to show the blacks who was boss. They could marry each other, but they couldn't marry someone white. All of this, simply because they were born black.
Back in the mid-1980s, my uncle was still closeted because it was not in his best interest, economically or socially, to be openly gay. When he became ill with the AIDS virus, he was attacked on the sidewalk in his cushy Upper West Side neighborhood because the sores on his face, in his attackers' minds, confirmed his homosexuality -- therefore giving them free reign to beat the daylights out of him.
Hate crimes against gay people are still rampant; bullying of gay children has lead to beatings, murders and suicides. All of this, simply because they were born gay.
Those who base their prejudice on the Bible's teachings are cherry-picking their beliefs, which I would suggest invalidates them. Until we see, for example, Mitt Romney selling everything he owns and giving the money to the poor, which the Bible instructs, his use of the Bible to deny gay marriage will never be valid. Christians are also taught that God created us in His image ... and I doubt that He meant a white heterosexual male.
Those who suggest that gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage and "family values" are out of touch with the current culture. Our society is awash in single-parent households, multiple marriages/divorces, child abuse and spousal abuse. In fact, if I were gay, I'm not sure I would even want a "traditional marriage" as opposed to a civil union with the same legal/economic benefits. But that's me.
And those who suggest that gay people being allowed to marry will lead to people marrying their pets ... don't even warrant a response.
If Mr. Cathy of Chick-fil-A had suggested that he didn't believe in women in the work force, or that African-Americans deserved equal rights, he'd be taken to task. If Mr. Philips of Masterpiece Cake Shop chose not to make a wedding cake for a white woman marrying an African-American man, he would be taken to task.
So it's not about the chicken and the cake. It's about civil rights -- human rights -- and simply doing the right thing.
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That's what many people said about the Suffrage Movement in the 1900s:
"The women's suffrage movement is only the small edge of the wedge, if we allow women to vote it will mean the loss of social structure and the rise of every liberal cause under the sun. Women are well represented by their fathers, brothers, and husbands."-- Winston Churchill
and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s:
Sen. Jesse Helms (R--N.Carolina) said the civil rights movement was infested by communists and "moral degenerates."
"The Civil Rights Commission should never have been brought into existence. It has been most prejudiced in its viewpoint, and has fomented trouble and racial disturbance since its inception. It should be abolished, not extended." --John Sparkman (D-AL)
Some day soon many people will regret that they were on the wrong side of history on the gay civil rights issue.
It couldn't be any more obvious.
He picks Boston, of all places? Where the foundation of marriage equality was set?
That was deliberate, as his defiant "guilty as charged" will attest.
He MEANT to disrespect us, here in the Commonwealth, and he MEANT to manipulate the public via surface tones of civility.
To me, THIS is what the outrage is all about.
Mr. Cathy's stance is intellectually dishonest...in its civil tone.
Behind the scenes, Chick-Fil-A profits are going towards groups that CAUSE the aforementioned status quo.