O Pinions!

Gay burger with a side of sighs?

Chick Fil-A and killing birds in Australia
2012, August 4

Get over gay marriage and move on to real issues? ...like the killing of birds in Australia?

I wrote to someone at facebook:

"Sorry, but as a human being I'm a bit concerned with gay rights. And yes, if they can kill birds then can kill gay people too... because for some people gay men and women count far far less than their pets or wild animals. Chick-Fil-A after all kills chickens. But for some ...a chicken sandwich is more important than basic human rights."

I probably didn't word this quite right. True: animal rights are important and those who are cruel to animals are many times cruel to fellow humans as well. However, many people consider gays and lesbian as less than animals. Until that changes I may not be happy about human cruelty towards animals because I'm more concerned about human cruelty towards me and mine.

The issue with Chick Fil-A, a fast food chicken joint, is that it is considered an individual under U.S. law and therefore has protected speech rights. Gay people however do not have basic human rights to jobs, a place to live nor protection from hate speech. This means that Mr. Cathy as CEO has every right to pour millions of dollars into anti-Gay organizations (gay marriage is only one of their pet peeves) with impunity. And then his backers can claim that he is being discriminated against by anti-Christian bigots if they call him on it. After-all, the U.S. is also a Christian Democratic Republic ...to some.

We Americans may complain about human rights violations abroad but we are not as keen on discussing how we violate them at home. Without a clear national policy granting all citizens first class rights (read gay and lesbian citizens here) organizations and individuals will continue to hide behind religious beliefs (no matter how sincere) that denigrate our very existence.

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