Wow...it was an interesting time in the franchise restaurant world this past week. Thousands of people descended upon their local Chick-fil-A restaurant on Wednesday in response to Mike Huckabee's declaration of August 1st being Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. You know the story. Dan Cathy's controversial comments about his views on marriage coupled with his personal donations to several organizations that are pro-traditional marriage (or anti-gay, hate organizations depending on your point of view) sparked responses by many people including some high ranking government officials who promised to do everything they could to prevent Chick-fil-A from opening restaurants in their cities/ districts. People didn't like that. Thought this was using government power in an illegal way. Then the LGBTQ (I may have this acronym wrong but I think it is correct...the Q, I believe, stands for "questioning") community suggested that folks go to Chick-fil-A on Friday and have a same-sex "kiss-in" to protest and show their resolve and solidarity.
OK....are we done with Chick-fil-A as a battleground? Can we let them get back to their cow commercials and let Dan Cathy have his own opinion and spend his personal money as he sees fit regardless of how much you dislike his positions?
Sure, many, if not most, of the people on Wednesday were there in support of free speech. I am 100% in your corner. Unfortunately, on Wednesday there were also plenty of people there that wanted to shake their fist at the gay community and with the strength of numbers and its resulting anonymity, by their presence, shout that [choose one or more] gays are pushy, gays are horrible, gays are evil, gays should just crawl into a hole somewhere and die. Because this is and was the case, I had no intention of showing up at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday. That doesn't mean my heart was in the right place. If you were there on Wednesday, I hope in retrospect that you have looked at your motives in a very honest way. And I also made no plans to show up on Friday to somehow be present to let the gay folks there know that I do not hate them. Those that were there wouldn't have believed me anyway.
Now that we have these publicity stunts over with for now, can we get back to behaving like respectful adults?
You know, the majority of people, regardless of their sexuality, are nice, respectful people who are just trying to live their lives the best they can. But what we seem to hear the most are the most obnoxious, folks on both sides of this conversation (and I sure wish it could be a conversation, not a shouting match.) Both sides in this debate seem to be characterized by the worst of the bunch. Roseanne Barr wished cancer on people that eat at Chick-fil-A (she renamed it) and are against gay marriage. Don't get me started on Westboro Baptist Church whose website contains "godhatesfags" in the url. Don't tell me your "side" is behaving appropriately, whichever side you are on.
Some "straight" people do not like gay people. Some people even hate gay people. I just have to say, I find this incredulous. They call them names and say terrible things about them (usually in the form of gay jokes to their heterosexual friends.) Oh, I don't think these people know a specific gay person that they do not like or even hate...they just feel this way generally because, of course, all gay people are alike. You know...gays are sinful, disgusting people.
Then there the holy ones that are making sure that they are personally going to wield God's judgement hammer and crusade against these people of the abomination (POTA) and they have the scripture verses to back it up. You know what I call these holy folks? ...sinful, disgusting people.
Some ugly, nasty people showed up on Wednesday and some ugly, nasty people showed up on Friday. In the aftermath, I have heard all the cogent arguments about why what happened those days was justifiable and right. But in the attempt to prove a point, we saw the worst of people.
A guy named Adam Smith (CFO for a large company) was downright nasty to a young lady in the drive-thru (said encounter which he chose to video and upload on You Tube) and thought he was going to prove his point that Chick-fil-A was evil. He ended up looking like a very small, mean-spirited person. So bad, in fact, that his company fired him and put out a press release condemning his actions. They wanted to ensure that everyone knows that he didn't speak on behalf of that organization.
Then there were the Christians that showed up to lock arms with fellow Christian Dan Cathy as a sign of solidarity. Others made statements to the news media, logged Facebook updates and tweeted about the sinfulness of homosexuality and God's condemnation on them that was sure to follow. (I do find it interesting that the one behavior mentioned in the Bible that most Christians are not tempted to do is the one that some focus the most attention on and condemn the most...just a coincidence I'm sure.) Adam Smith got fired because he embarrassed his boss. There are some Christians that, if God ran His world like bosses run their companies, should be fired for embarrassing their Boss.
Fortunately, God is so much greater and higher than His Creation. He does not judge like we judge. His judgement is out of perfect love. He doesn't fire us either for embarrassing Him. If He did, we would all have the employment status that Adam Smith has today. Standing up for our convictions is a good thing...most of the time. But, if standing up for our convictions causes us to break the commandment that Jesus Christ gave us (and he only gave us 2) then maybe we need to reconsider what we are doing and what is going on in our hearts. By the way, I believe that if we break Jesus' second commandment, then we are technically breaking the first one along with it.
I am a sinner. You are a sinner. God loves me. God loves you (and by you, I mean everyone other than me.)
I hope as many Christians that showed up at Chick-fil-A this week to support their cause show up tomorrow morning to worship the One we say we love and serve. And may God's grace and mercy rain down on us and change us...not to what we want to be but what He wants us to be.
UPDATE TO MY BLOG POSTING- I am encouraged by recent events since all the noise in August 2012. Read this!
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