today's chick fil a dine-in a very, very good thing (no really, it was!) ...

Just a quick post today, on what I thought of the Chick-fil-A turnout.

In a word?  Awesome.

Look it, I think the owner is dead wrong in his stance on gay marriage, and equality for all citizens, regardless of who they sleep with at night.  I mean, my God – we currently live in a country in which otherwise normal people of faith are DEFENDING the Catholic Church protecting pedophile priests.  How anyone who supports a pedophile “preaching” the word of God, yet opposes equal rights, can draw breath, I have no idea.

But the owner of Chick-fil-A is dead on right about one thing: there is a cultural war under way in this country, and it ain’t a war on women.  It’s a war on faith.

And it’s one I want “my side” to lose, and lose in a fashion that would embarrass the Iraqi Republican Guard for how one-sided it was.

Look it, I am not a religious person.  I have my reasons for why that is, and no matter how much you try to “pray for me”, or “debate me”, or any other thing you try to do for me, I’m simply not going to see your viewpoint.  I have no use for religion.  But I get that a lot of people do.  And it pisses the crap out of me that the alleged “enlightened” of our society, the “tolerant”, the “moderate”, the “liberal”, the “let’s all get along” crowd, has exposed itself for what it is – full of hate, ridicule, despise, for anyone who dares to challenge their assertion that there is no such thing as a moral authority.

Uuh, guys?  There IS an abject moral authority.  I may have no use for religion, but even I acknowledge there is a God, and that there MUST be a moral code to hold society together.  I think we can all agree that murder, theft, cheating on your wife, these are all “evil things” that deserve whatever punishment society chooses to dish out for them.  (My preference?  In order, “life in prison, unless extenuating circumstances exist”, probation and restitution, and taking a vice grip to said cheater’s nuts and cutting the things off.  See, who says I’m soft on crime – I’d cut every cheater’s balls off!  It doesn’t get much tougher than that!)

There has to be a tolerance in society for matter of religion, of faith, of absolute good and evil, because otherwise, society will collapse.  Part of that tolerance, involves accepting that people will have a differing view from you … and accepting they have that differing view, within reason.

Did Mr. Cathy, the owner of Chick-fil-A, make comments a couple weeks ago that I strongly disagree with?  Yes, yes he did.  Did Mr. Cathy commit a crime by making those comments?  Nope.  Does Chick-fil-A refuse to serve people of color, like a church in Mississippi last month refusing to marry a couple of color that was a part of their congregation?  Nope.  Does Mr. Cathy’s franchise refuse to serve gay couples who enter their doors?  Nope.

Have they hired, uuh, hired goons, to stand guard at the doors for Friday’s planned “kiss-in” (which, truth be told, repulses me)?  Nope.  Anyone and everyone is free to dine in any Chick-fil-A, is free to work there, without fear of discrimination, reprisal, or censorship.

Mr. Cathy expressed an opinion.  It’s an opinion I happen to disagree with.  And yet, I spent 52 minutes in line tonight, over half of it standing on concrete in 102 degree temperatures, because his RIGHT to express his opinion? 

MUST be respected, and upheld, REGARDLESS of what you think of gay marriage.

Eventually, and I believe this will occur within the next twenty years, our children will look to those of us that are their parents (fine, my age bracket, since I don’t have any kids: the 25-40 demographic presently), and ask us, as our parents asked their parents 30 years ago, “how could you possibly support hate, denial of civil rights, denial of equality, based on who someone was born as?”  We WILL reach that point as a society, and I anxiously await the day we do.

Until then?  Let Mr. Cathy and people who believe as he does, speak.  Let them talk.  If only because every word they utter, brings us closer to truly living the crede of “judging someone not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”.  If only because it brings us that much closer to truly living our founding document’s first sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

And if only because protecting and defending ignorance, hastens an end to ignorance’s place in our society …