Chick-Fillet Employee Hated By Alleged College Professor At Drive Through...I Am Just Stunned By Petty Assholes...

[Brant Gaede]

My experience with "Christian love" and fellowship is it's shallower than a dried up stream. It's only good for inclusion and exclusion as with all other forms of tribalism.

--Brant

[Selene]

I gather I chose my Christians well then.

I have run into folks like George described and I guess I find them so pitifully powerless that I do not take them seriously.

Now, clearly, the situation that George described with the KK Clansmen of Bloomington was dangerously evil. I would not have handled it as well as George did.

Frankly, I would have gotten my semi auto, not a flashlight, and their cars would not have driven away with all of their tires flattened and gas tanks perforated.

And yes Carol, if necessary I would have flat out stopped them physically.

Adam

[caroljane]

I gather I chose my Christians well then.

I have run into folks like George described and I guess I find them so pitifully powerless that I do not take them seriously.

Now, clearly, the situation that George described with the KK Clansmen of Bloomington was dangerously evil. I would not have handled it as well as George did.

Frankly, I would have gotten my semi auto, not a flashlight, and their cars would not have driven away with all of their tires flattened and gas tanks perforated.

And yes Carol, if necessary I would have flat out stopped them physically.

Adam

That's it then, you'll have to disarm outside the Sacred Igloo like everyione else from now on, No more diplomatic immunity.

[Selene]

So you are going to pat me down Carol...hmm now that is tempting...

On a lighter note...finally, there appears to be a hint of a sense of humor from the non-Chick-Fillet A crowd:

"I must admit I don’t get around much, so I didn’t even know the reliably left-leaning Huff ’n’ Puff Post had a “Gay Voices” section. But yesterday, I read an article from there that covered a recent petition (with a whopping 1,500+ signatures!) that demanded that Chick-Fil-A be consistent with their “anti-homosexual” values and stop serving “homosexual” chicken at their restaurants.

As the petition explains, some male chickens will mount other male chickens, so Chick-Fil-A cannot be consistent with their values until they make sure that none of the chicken meat they are serving comes from “homosexual” chickens.

Wow. I’ve read some really, really stupid petitions in my life. But that one… Where do you even start?

First, I’m sure this petition was meant as a sort of barbed joke, but it falls squarely into the “Boom! How will you ever recover from the devastation of my cleverness?!!!!” category—a category which regularly falls far short of its intended goal. I feel bad for the people that wrote this actually. Is this really the best they can come up with?

Second, if these people actually think Chick-Fil-A is a hate-filled, anti-homosexual company, wouldn’t it be more consistent for Chick-Fil-A to serve only homosexual chickens? I mean it’s not like Chick-Fil-A sends their chickens on luxury vacations. They kill them. And then we eat them.

Third, why are homosexuals so obsessed with the fact that animals intermittently commit homosexual acts? The fact is that animals really don’t practice homosexuality per se. It’s not like any of them are exclusively attracted to the same sex. They just have no self-control. They will hump pretty much anything around if they get the notion. My dog used to hump male and female dogs, plush toys, the legs of guests, sectional sofas… you know—anything. He was a dog, after all. He ate our underwear and pooped in the hallway too. I fail to see why that matters. Animals variously engage in incest, genocide, cannibalism, pedophilia, and other socially unacceptable behaviors. If homosexuals want to legitimize their behavior by claiming that it is “only natural,” what leg do they have to stand on to condemn anything—including the so-called “intolerance” of Chick-Fil-A?

Read more: http://politicaloutc.../#ixzz22hWNV6Vb

[caroljane]

All I can say is after all this I bought some chicken parts that were already dead and fried them myself, I know I should have baked them skinless but I just wanted fried.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I wish I had come up with the following thought, but it came from a young lady filling in for Glenn Beck on the radio this morning (Dana something-or-other). Anyway, I'm always amused at the selective filtering and havoc a core story wreaks on a person's perception, especially if he constantly points the finger at others for moral transgressions.

Core story is a topic I have been thinking a lot about recently. The story of Christianity is a core story, for example. The story of Communism is a core story. Ditto for Islam, American exceptionalism, evolution qua religion (even genes are personified and have goals the way they tell that story), victimization of this group or that, and so on. Ayn Rand provided such a powerful core story she constantly quoted her own fictional characters.

The danger is that a core story leads those who adopt it to selectively perceive reality--to make good guys and bad guys out of people according to the story, not according to who they actually are.

With all that reality out there for people to grasp, use and enjoy, most prefer the safety of a core story. That's really something. The tragedy is that it cuts out huge chunks of reality and this means most people live as players in someone else's story, not as a story creator of their own lives--one who is helping make a better world for themselves and everyone else. This is a long topic for another time.

The point is if a person doesn't examine his core story periodically with critical eyes, It will turn him into a flaming hypocrite without any complication whatsoever. (Incidentally, this core story stuff is my thinking, not Dana's. Now on to her thought.)

Here's the deal. Everyone (or nearly everyone) who has protested the hate at Chick-Fil-A had to drive there. Good cars, too. Big ones. Hardly no bicycles or two legs with feet. These people are usually liberal types.

So they go. Kisses and luv all 'round. Unless you are their target, of course. Then their kissing lips slide back and the vampire fangs come out. As Dana said, she has never met more spiteful people than those bearing the flag of anti-hate. They are vicious and downright nasty. Bullies.

They also generally support Obama's arrangements with the Muslim Brotherhood. And they fill their cars with fuel that mostly originates from Muslim Arabian countries.

So what's that got to do with anything? Well, the penalty for being gay in those places is severe and often includes execution of the gay person. That's right. State-imposed murder.

So while these do-gooder busybodies and Teachers Of Proper Morality To Others go about making public awareness efforts so that no one should profit if he holds an opinion against gay marriage, they happily support regimes and social structures that kill off their gays just for being gay. I don't mean "support" as in give an opinion. I mean it as providing gay-hating regimes with their own money and backing politicians who help provide murdering bigots with power.

They literally supply the means for hate-filled people to persecute and kill gays and they are totally unaware of it. I guess they are too busy to notice, what with all their concern with raising public awareness and stuff. Besides, what are they going to do, walk?!!

And the world turns. Depending on where you sit, it's always turning toward the morning or toward the night.

Well, night it is. The anti-hate crusaders go to bed at night feeling virtuous in the full certain knowledge that by driving to Chick-Fil-A with Obama bumper-stickers on their big-ass cars and protesting, they struck a blow against hating gays in the world.

Michael

[Dan Haggerty]

While I agree that the owner should be called out for such ancient mystical nonsense as the whole “I care who gets married” non-argument, the issue is neither that nor the fact he funds groups that violate the rights of homosexuals. It should be but it is not.

Why?

Because that is not why the protestors are out there… If they claimed they were protesting him because of that funding it would be more understandable; although how kissing in front of the people who don’t spend the money is supposed to help is a mystery to me. The protestors showed up because of what the President said, not what he does, by their own words. They are protesting speech. They are creating social pressure to punish the wrong kind of speech.

The owner is wrong but in the realm for speech he is within his rights. He only hurts himself by thinking and saying anything. The protestors are a mob and their intent is to intimidate others into obeying their views. They are two degrees removed from demanding a strong man to enforce it and that is why they need to be stopped. Lower rung of hell and all of that.

I mean, next thing you know they’ll do something really stupid like invade Wall Street while chanting they are a number, not a human being.

[studiodekadent]

While I agree that the owner should be called out for such ancient mystical nonsense as the whole “I care who gets married” non-argument, the issue is neither that nor the fact he funds groups that violate the rights of homosexuals. It should be but it is not.

Why?

Because that is not why the protestors are out there… If they claimed they were protesting him because of that funding it would be more understandable; although how kissing in front of the people who don’t spend the money is supposed to help is a mystery to me. The protestors showed up because of what the President said, not what he does, by their own words. They are protesting speech. They are creating social pressure to punish the wrong kind of speech.

The owner is wrong but in the realm for speech he is within his rights. He only hurts himself by thinking and saying anything. The protestors are a mob and their intent is to intimidate others into obeying their views. They are two degrees removed from demanding a strong man to enforce it and that is why they need to be stopped. Lower rung of hell and all of that.

I disagree strongly.

The protestors are indeed a group and they do want to create social pressure against this example of a bigoted viewpoint.

Why is this wrong? It is not a violation of free speech to socially pressure people you disagree with. It is an exercise of Free Speech.

Free Speech is a negative liberty. It means no individual or institution (including the State) is permitted to use force, fraud or threats thereof to stop you from doing something. If they use persuasion or even boycotts or even public shaming, they are not violating anyone's right to Free Speech.

"Two degrees removed from demanding a strong man to enforce it" is both 1) irrelevant, and 2) legally impossible. If any government official abused their power in such a way, the Courts would slaughter that official. The strong man's actions would be such a clear and naked violation of free speech that even Nanny-Statist Michael Bloomberg has recognized that it would be wrong to use the apparatus of the State to keep Chick-fil-A out of his city.

And even so, every accusation you make about the anti-Chick-fil-A "mob" applies equally to conservative Christians. They are easily led by charismatic strongmen, politically influential, and explicitly, repeatedly and openly demand the use of the power of the State to discriminate against non-heterosexual people (and other groups, too).

Creating social pressure against certain opinions is not necessarily 'bullying.' Should someone that expresses the opinion "I think all Jewish people should be disemboweled in the town square" be free from any social pressure against their views?

Social pressure against bullying is absolutely a good thing. And yes, Chick-fil-A funds organizations which encourage, support, justify and rationalize bullying against certain targets. Focus On The Family, led by that Fundie nutcase Dobson, justifies the bullying of children by their parents, and the bullying of gay people by treating them as inferior, disordered and diseased. Fundamentalist Christian churches preach about the evils of Teh Gayz, is it any surprise that non-hetero kids often get bullied in school (by Fundie kids, too) to the point of killing themselves?

Protests against Chick-fil-A are protests against a business which bankrolls bullies and bully-enablers and bully-encouragers.

Until Dan Cathy stops donating Chick-fil-A's profits to fundamentalist groups, I will support all nonviolent protests and boycotts of Chick-fil-A restaurants.

[BaalChatzaf]

Does Chick-Fillet produce a good product? (of its kind, that is).

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Andrew,

I agree with you about protesting being a proper form of exercising the right to free speech. And, in general, I am no fan of the groups you mentioned for many of the same reasons you gave. I have no problem with defending traditional family values, but I do have a problem when bigotry is a linchpin.

I believe the Chick-Fil-A protests would speak to people at large, and not just the choir, if the protesters were consistent. But they are hypocrites. Why don't they protest (instead of support) formal anti-gay Islamic regimes along with their Junk Food Crusade? It's like the Occupy Wall Street people protesting against capitalism with their iPhones firmly in their hands.

As to the Chick-Fil-A thing itself, I believe this is a bunch of nonsense that will blow over. If you want to change public perception, you don't do it by protesting a fast-food chain. That's a recipe for disaster. With fries and a milk-shake on the side to boot.

If you want to see how to do it efficiently and effectively--including how it has been done, the best work I can think of is The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom by David Kupelian.

If you can get past the gay=evil kind of crap in Kupelian's work and his other prejudices, he is quite perceptive in dissecting the process of changing public perception about homosexuals. By trying to combat it, he gives the best blueprint I have seen so far.

All the Chick-Fil-A thing is going to do is fill Dan Cathy's pockets with more money than he ever imagined, mostly from Christian support. And one of the reasons this will happen is that the protesters are not consistent. They present an easy storyline for almost anyone to trounce.

And how do you best trounce it? In deed, not just word? Why, easy. If you chow down on some tasty junk food, you will strike a decisive blow for the First Amendment. All people have to do is a little more of what they already like to do. So this support is going to be around for a long, long time. Friggen' no-brainer.

What on earth were the lefties thinking? Are they so stupid they can't see this?

Michael

EDIT: btw - I tend to agree with Dan's analysis. While I do believe many of the protesters are sincere, I also believe most are following orders. And these last are no friends of free speech.

[Dan Haggerty]

...

Good post. You made think about this more, and more ironically defend the Christians. I haven’t posted on religion much here but trust me when I say I usually end up being the guy really blasting the established religions.

I disagree strongly.

The protestors are indeed a group and they do want to create social pressure against this example of a bigoted viewpoint.

Why is this wrong? It is not a violation of free speech to socially pressure people you disagree with. It is an exercise of Free Speech.

I’m not saying they do not have a right to do it, as long as they are not invading someone’s property or disturbing other people in the process they can do what t hey want. But a bunch of kids crying over what someone thinks as if it hurt them is nonsense at best and it today’s progressive political climate a concern. When I was a kid if someone said I would be forced to buy products from a Government regulated cartel I would have scoffed, but today we have Obamacare™. I don’t trust the slide down collectivist action (and mob reaction) one bit.

That is why I said it would be justified if they complained about how he funded groups that tried to violate their rights, because that is action and is a problem. Speech is just ideas and do not harm anyone as long as it stays that. The protestors are the only one acting by their own admission and it is pressure to force someone to change their opinion.

Now, do I think the owner should change his mind? Yes. It is an absurd opinion with an expiration date that sailed by with the invention of the scientific method. Would I create a mob and demand that someone think properly to cater to my whims? No.

Free Speech is a negative liberty. It means no individual or institution (including the State) is permitted to use force, fraud or threats thereof to stop you from doing something. If they use persuasion or even boycotts or even public shaming, they are not violating anyone's right to Free Speech.

They are trying to pressure someone to think with the mob. Bad place at the end of the rainbow, especially when the next mob is one with whom you disagree. The ends to not justify the means, especially when your one mob or election from someone capitalizing on your precedent.

Incidentally, a boycott is perfectly fine. I don’t buy Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream ever since I discovered they funded the Occupy crowd. Showing up and drawing attention to it is not that. Ironically, this is like the parent who wants a warning label on an album to protect their child from hearing bad words. Ultimately the kid ends up motivated to listen to it to see what the big deal is. These idiots are only helping the man, but their irrationality is the secondary issue. The primary is an angry mob demanding compliance with the collective.

"Two degrees removed from demanding a strong man to enforce it" is both 1) irrelevant, and 2) legally impossible. If any government official abused their power in such a way, the Courts would slaughter that official. The strong man's actions would be such a clear and naked violation of free speech that even Nanny-Statist Michael Bloomberg has recognized that it would be wrong to use the apparatus of the State to keep Chick-fil-A out of his city.

It is very relevant. The next step would be the violation of rights (aka Occupy Random Locations) then the next step is political support which would end in a strong man.

OK, I guess that is three steps. Anyway, we are there my friend. The Occupy crowd did protest people for what they thought (“Your Greedy!”) in addition it implied actions, and they did get political support exactly from Bloomberg. New York pressured the owners of the occupied property to not file claims to dislodge the little criminals. Property owners were threatened to allow the protestors to continue to squat on their property to the point they had to cancel actual events.

The next step is direct political support en force, but are we there yet? Debatable. I don’t like our chances when a bunch of crybabies show up and whine over random speech and ideas. They had the highroad if they talked about the guy’s investments but they went the route of attacking his speech to force him to obey their ideas.

Further, if they really wanted to do that they should have protested the corporate office at best. Going to a random store where the people on site have no control over this and pretending it has substance to the poor clerk working behind the counter is silly.

I’m glad people showed up so no one working there was laid off due to poor sales.

And even so, every accusation you make about the anti-Chick-fil-A "mob" applies equally to conservative Christians. They are easily led by charismatic strongmen, politically influential, and explicitly, repeatedly and openly demand the use of the power of the State to discriminate against non-heterosexual people (and other groups, too).

Now I completely agree with this. 100%. We are on the same page!

Which is why I find it disheartening to watch a group which I should agree do the same thing…

Creating social pressure against certain opinions is not necessarily 'bullying.' Should someone that expresses the opinion "I think all Jewish people should be disemboweled in the town square" be free from any social pressure against their views?

Civilization is the process of setting a man free from other men.

It is the march towards privacy. Mobs chanting over speech they disapprove, as if that was a valid concept in the first place, is a trend in the opposite direction to put it kindly. There are plenty of ways to get involved to constructively do this without getting up someone’s rear. Blogs, news articles, support groups that put out positive PR, education, etc. Life as the nosy neighbor from Bewitched is not a virtue.

Social pressure against bullying is absolutely a good thing. And yes, Chick-fil-A funds organizations which encourage, support, justify and rationalize bullying against certain targets. Focus On The Family, led by that Fundie nutcase Dobson, justifies the bullying of children by their parents, and the bullying of gay people by treating them as inferior, disordered and diseased. Fundamentalist Christian churches preach about the evils of Teh Gayz, is it any surprise that non-hetero kids often get bullied in school (by Fundie kids, too) to the point of killing themselves?

St. Augustine approves of your tactics, gay or not. Guess who wins that compromise politically in the long run.

Protests against Chick-fil-A are protests against a business which bankrolls bullies and bully-enablers and bully-encouragers.

The protestors are not doing this however. You feel justified since you know this is a protest against a man doing this. The kids crying out front of a random store however are doing it to protests words and ideas by their own account. They are a mob forcing someone to change their view to theirs because God forbid people think differently. Get them in front of the TV now so the voice can teach them “socially popular ideas”!

The sad thing is they are opening this up for others to do the same thing. Sometime down the road a gay person is going to say something a Christian doesn’t like and then you’ll have a mob of them showing up to peacefully protest his speech as hateful too. And guess what, talk radio will drone on how they started it. Precedent set. Protesting to control speech by mob action is acceptable behavior, just bring your own mob and the biggest gang will win. Privacy will loose.

[Brant Gaede]

If no one is initiating force, then you cannot objectify wrong-doing beyond your own subjective preferences. Those can be very powerful and right in their own right but contemning and condemning others who take exception in amount or kind leaves you over a moral abyss discovering gravity.

--Brant

[studiodekadent]

MSK and Dan,

No offense but your replies sound like "even if I don't agree with Cathy's politics, philosophy or donations, I cannot endorse the protests against Chick-fil-A because the protestors are Progressives and thus the protestors are our principal enemy."

First, this kind of logic is the Genetic Fallacy, or Reductio Ad Hitlerum (i.e. "X is supported by group Y, group Y is evil, therefore X must be evil"). But just because the protests are being led by liberals doesn't mean the protests are wrong.

Second, I know many leftists are anti-free-speech, but I should clarify that several people from the left have actually spoken against any thoughts about trying to legally block Chick-fil-A restaurants. Mike Bloomberg is one, but Glenn Greenwald (of Salon, a libertarian-sympathetic liberal who never shies away from pointing out the hypocrisies of other leftists, a man that has worked with the Cato Institute on several occasions, and a commentator I greatly respect even if I disagree with him on economics) has also done this. If I remember correctly, even the Mother Jones editorial page has ran "do not legislate against Chick-fil-A, just voluntarily boycott them" articles (Reason magazine had a blog post where they pointed this out).

As for some specific things said by MSK..

And how do you best trounce it? In deed, not just word? Why, easy. If you chow down on some tasty junk food, you will strike a decisive blow for the First Amendment. All people have to do is a little more of what they already like to do. So this support is going to be around for a long, long time. Friggen' no-brainer.

This is how the Fundie Right have framed the issue, but the First Ammendment is not at issue here. The only situation where the First Ammendment comes into play is the political process being used to shut out Chick-fil-A restaurants. Cathy's statements? Protected by the First Ammendment. Cathy's donations? Protected by the First Ammendment. Outrage over the content of the statements and the beneficiaries of the donations? Protected by the First Ammendment. Voluntary, nonviolent boycotts and protests? Also protected by the First Ammendment.

The Christians have framed the issue as Dan Cathy being attacked for speaking his mind and somehow claiming this violates Free Speech. No, it doesn't. Free Speech is a negative liberty, not a positive liberty. It is a guarantee against violent/fraudulent/coercive responses to your speech (and other things too), but it is NOT a guarantee of your speech being accepted or encouraged by the audience. It isn't a guarantee of your ideas being liked or approved of or calmly discussed and it is NOT a guarantee that others will think of you no differently due to the content of your speech.

The Christian framing of the Chick-fil-A debacle is plainly manipulative. This is not a free speech issue (outside of governments threatening to prevent Chick-fil-A from entering their markets). "Free" and "socially acceptable" are totally different concepts.

I am not surprised that the Christians are doing this. In one breath, they will claim that their Freedom Of Religion is obstructed by a lack of publically-funded religious monuments (i.e. treating Freedom Of Their Religion as a positive liberty), and then they will claim that they aren't theocratic because they don't want to ban any other religions (i.e. treating Freedom Of Other Religions as a negative liberty). They do this ALL THE TIME. They want the State to enable and privilege their Christianity and treat any refusal to do so as an infringement upon their rights.

Now on to Dan...

But a bunch of kids crying over what someone thinks as if it hurt them is nonsense at best and it today’s progressive political climate a concern.

And in a conservative political climate, when the religious right has a White House that is receptive to their "BUT THEIR THOUGHTS HURT ME!!!" complaints, their complaints are just as much of a concern. You seem to think that only leftists fantasize about censoring people and things they disagree with.

As for "bunch of kids crying," I'm going to just subtly remind you about an important fact; many people often characterize libertarians as uncaring about the social issues, and hence see them as another breed of conservative. Have you ever considered that perhaps a reason this characterization occurs is because some libertarians dismiss concern over bigotry as "kids crying over what someone thinks as if it hurt them"?

[BaalChatzaf]

On the other hand, if you like their product and do not see a strong connection between good chicken and a foul attitude toward homosexuals, by all means buy their product. Taste the chicken and forget the opinions.

Col. Sander's probably didn't like Negroes. So what? KFC chicken tastes good.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[studiodekadent]

On the other hand, if you like their product and do not see a strong connection between good chicken and a foul attitude toward homosexuals,

Pun Intended?

Col. Sander's probably didn't like Negroes. So what? KFC chicken tastes good.

False equivalence. Col. Sanders is dead and KFC Inc doesn't fund the KKK.

If Col. Sanders were alive and funnelling profits from KFC to KKK, you'd have an equivalent situation.

That said, I agree KFC does taste good.

[George H. Smith]

Protests against Chick-fil-A are protests against a business which bankrolls bullies and bully-enablers and bully-encouragers.

Until Dan Cathy stops donating Chick-fil-A's profits to fundamentalist groups, I will support all nonviolent protests and boycotts of Chick-fil-A restaurants.

There are many good actors with leftist political views, who use their money to support wacko causes. Do you boycott their movies?

Back in the 1960s and 70s, Jane Fonda was spoutling all kinds of crazy stuff, which seemed to vary according to her boyfriend at the time. But there was no way that I was going to boycott "Barbarella" (1968) -- her greatest film for which, unaccountably, she did not receive an Oscar.

Consider the opening sequence -- the best striptease in the history of film. Gotta love those leftie feminists. Sex trumps politics every time, so far as I'm concerned.

LATER EDIT: Do I need to add a warning here, since this clip contains mild nudity? I first saw "Barbarella" in a Tucson theater, and the nudity was not this explicit. The credits covered more of Fonda than we see in this version. I wonder if this came from the European version of the movie.

Ghs

[Selene]

On the other hand, if you like their product and do not see a strong connection between good chicken and a foul attitude toward homosexuals,

Pun Intended?

Col. Sander's probably didn't like Negroes. So what? KFC chicken tastes good.

False equivalence. Col. Sanders is dead and KFC Inc doesn't fund the KKK.

If Col. Sanders were alive and funnelling profits from KFC to KKK, you'd have an equivalent situation.

That said, I agree KFC does taste good.

False Equivalency Flag!

Focus on the Family and the KKK!!!! Come on. Hoods, murders, lynchings, burning and bombing homes and churches vs. running ads, lobbying?

[studiodekadent]

Focus on the Family and the KKK!!!! Come on. Hoods, murders, lynchings, burning and bombing homes and churches vs. running ads, lobbying?

Both are bigoted hate groups, religiously-motivated, white-southerner dominated, and devoted to the denial of the individual rights of various minority groups.

Their means do differ, granted. They aren't identical. But isn't their tactical difference principally a difference of degree rather than principle?

[Selene]

Focus on the Family and the KKK!!!! Come on. Hoods, murders, lynchings, burning and bombing homes and churches vs. running ads, lobbying?

Their means do differ, granted. They aren't identical. But isn't their tactical difference principally a difference of degree rather than principle?

Andrew:

I guess I see it as more than a "degree" when you compare a violent, vicious lynching of a human being and passing a law that can be repealed that denies an individual's "right" to a civilly recognized marriage. It is impossible to untie that rope from a dead man's neck and have him do his Lazarus impression.

Adam

[studiodekadent]

I guess I see it as more than a "degree" when you compare a violent, vicious lynching of a human being and passing a law that can be repealed that denies an individual's "right" to a civilly recognized marriage. It is impossible to untie that rope from a dead man's neck and have him do his Lazarus impression.

You have a point. A killing cannot be undone.

Still, the underlying point of comparison is both organizations work to stop the legal recognition of rights of certain groups (although yes, clearly the KKK was far more extreme in its methods).

Chick-fil-A provides funding to an organization which works to prevent the legal recognition of the rights of certain groups (not just gay people, may I add... James Dobson's entire philosophy is a huge attack on the rights of young people).

KFC does not, at least to my knowledge.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is how the Fundie Right have framed the issue...

Andrew,

Of course it is. I was talking about persuasion. I made the comments because isn't protesting to raise awareness a form or persuasion? Well, there's no way to purposefully ignore how persuasion works and make a difference. I thought you were discussing this because you were interested in change...

They do this ALL THE TIME. They want the State to enable and privilege their Christianity and treat any refusal to do so as an infringement upon their rights.

Once again, of course. The other side does, too. And those who are on the fringe. That's almost ALL of what is going on in the public news arena these days. Power is what the persuasion game is all about. And it all starts with the angelic us against the demonic them.

The system is actually tribal collectivism at root with a playing field for warring tribes.

I don't play the power game, but I have learned it. (I'm now learning some of the more advanced stuff.) I don't much care about what the government does short-term. Long-term I care (I want smaller government, not different big-government laws against this group or that), but short-term is a losing proposition. I prefer to find the cracks, weigh my chances and do whatever the hell I want to do, whether it is illegal or not.

I'm surprised that those who are playing the short-term power persuasion game on the pro-gay side of the Chick-Fil-A puff-job melodrama are so inept all of a sudden. But that's not the first time I've seen misfires like that (on all sides).

Michael

[studiodekadent]

This is how the Fundie Right have framed the issue...

Andrew,

Of course it is. I was talking about persuasion.

Ahhh. My mistake. I misinterpreted you. Sorry.

And yes, framing the debate as about free speech was indeed a victory for the fundies. Damn fundies...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

And yes, framing the debate as about free speech was indeed a victory for the fundies. Damn fundies...

Andrew,

Heh.

They didn't even have to frame hardly at all. Persuasion-wise, this was handed to them on a silver platter (with fries and a milkshake). For them, it was like a soccer match where the striker on the opposing side shot a perfect goal into his own net.

Like I said, what were they thinking?

Michael

[Dan Haggerty]

Sex trumps politics every time, so far as I'm concerned.

Ghs

That would make a brilliant essay.

[Selene]

Sex trumps politics every time, so far as I'm concerned.

Ghs

That would make a brilliant essay.

An even better essay spoken in a film...

William Jefferson Clinton could do the voice over...