Damielys Duarte/Staff Writer
The number of times you’ve stumbled across a Chick-fil-A on a slow Sunday afternoon, only to find its doors firmly locked, is probably countless.
It’s a practice the fast food chain has taken part in since its inception due to its owner’s Christian beliefs. But that’s not the only controversial move the franchise has taken.
In 2014, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy admitted in an interview that he believed in the Biblical version of marriage between a man and a woman. This sparked nationwide outrage; many people boycotted the restaurant due to its “homophobia.”
But despite this, and despite your sexual orientation, you can still eat at Chick-fil-A. It’s not a homophobic restaurant, but a corporation practicing its right to freedom of speech and religion.
What many people fail to understand is the owner of Chick-fil-A is entitled to his religious beliefs and, because of his First Amendment right, he can disagree with the LGBTQ community. However, what he can’t do is discriminate gay people from eating at his restaurant — which he hasn’t.
Many people and media outlets have also attacked the donations Cathy has made to conservative, religious groups known for “discriminating against LGBTQ groups,” according to an article by ThinkProgress.
Chick-fil-A’s 2017 tax returns showed they donated $1,653,416 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and $150,000 to the Salvation Army, according to Business Insider — two organizations that ThinkProgress and other publications have classified as anti-LGBT due to their historic opposition to same-sex marriage.
However, all private corporations are free to donate to whatever cause they wish. Social pressures have convinced everyone to have the same beliefs, but we can’t force people to do so.
The same way there are Christian groups unsupportive of gay marriage, there are also Muslims who disagree and certain Mormons who believe in polyamorous relationships. It’s that diversity of beliefs that results in the diversity of culture we love in America. So how can one group, such as the LGBTQ community who claim to be inclusive of all races and genders, not have room for people who disagree?
We can’t attack and boycott everyone who disagrees with us, but learn to accept differing opinions without jumping the gun.
Even though Chick-fil-A is a conservative company, that has never stopped them from offering great food and service to all who enter, regardless of race or sexual orientation. This doesn’t mean gay rights should be minimized, nor should they be discriminated against because of an organization’s beliefs. However, corporations that have differing views should not be labeled as “homophobic” or “discriminatory to the LGBTQ community” if there aren’t instances of them refusing to serve the gay community.
For those reasons, and despite the public outrage, Chick-fil-A sales have been better than ever. FIU is planning on opening another Chick-fil-A at the Biscayne Bay Campus this fall, and the restaurant in Parking Garage 5 in the Modesto Maidique Campus is always buzzing. Here, customers are indifferent or ignorant of the controversy surrounding their chicken sandwich.
Hopefully, this is a sign that our younger generation is learning to separate their meals from their politics.
DISCLAIMER:
The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.
First off, mormons have polygamous relationships, NOT polyamorous relationships. Those are two completely different things and is an extremely important distinction. Polygamous relationships are based on faith whereas polyamorous relationships are not. Polygamous relationships are heterosexual in nature, with (usually) one male having several wives who don’t have relationships with the other. Polyamorous relationships are queer in nature, with several people, regardless of their gender, establishing a relationship with their own boundaries and limitations. Polyamorous relationships can take many forms and have many different set ups. No two polyamorous relationships are the same. Also, polyamory is considered a sexual orientation, just like asexuality. Polygamy is not. If you are going to use queer terms, please be informed about them and what they mean. The fact that you don’t know the difference tells me you are not well-informed about the queer community, which is extremely concerning considering the fact that you wrote a whole article about how queer people shouldn’t boycott an anti-queer organization. It makes me question the validity of your claims.
Second of all, boycotts have historically been shown to influence social change. Just as Chick-fil-A has a right to their beliefs, queer people have a write to express disapproval to those beliefs. When Anita Bryant reversed the Miami ordinance that protected LGBT people from work and housing discrimination, people boycotted orange juice because she was the face of orange juice. And guess what? It worked. And it was because of this boycott and the persistence of many queer activists that we now have these basic rights. Well, in Miami at least. Boycotts were also extremely important in the time of the civil rights era. Imagine if people didn’t boycott the bus. We’d be sitting in separate parts of the bus today. So no, we can’t “separate our meals from our politics”. It’s the very reason we have rights today and one of the most impactful ways to fight against oppression in a capitalist state.
Third of all, it’s one thing to believe that queer people should not have rights and it’s another to actively support it through the active donation to groups who use that money for conversion therapy and lobbying to take away rights from queer people. Queer rights are human rights and to actively oppose those rights is to deny the rights of humans, of people. Go ahead and believe from afar, but if you’re going to actively oppress people, even if it’s through donations which gives power to anti-LGBT organizations, there’s going to be backlash and that includes boycotting.
Did you know Florida has yet to pass a law that protects queer people from housing and work discrimination? So, under the law, queer people are still not equal and do not have the same rights as a Christians do, meaning there’s a power dynamic at play. When queer people have equal rights, then we’ll talk about accepting intolerance. Until then, queer people need to fight to achieve the same laws everyone else has in the country, and that includes boycotting organizations that have exhibited anti-LGBT actions.