Mmm, Chick-Fil-A

A friend sent me a New York Times article about a Gay Advocacy group that is boycotting Chick-Fil-A for providing sandwiches at a marriage seminar in Pennsylvania. I wish I could share the link with you, but the website is demanding that I login; unfortunately, I don't have an account with the Grey Lady so I can't share the article. I'm not even sure how I was able to read it in the first place...

I have a few thoughts about this. First of all, in America, Chick-Fil-A has a right to distribute sandwiches however it chooses. Secondly, any group has a right to boycott any business because of its business practices. These are wonderful rights that we possess as Americans, and I wouldn't want to give those up.

That said, boycotts are generally a bad idea. Christians know this as well as anyone. We've learned the hard way that boycotts often do nothing but draw more attention to the entity being boycotted. In fact, most boycotts make the boycotters look shrill, angry, and outright ridiculous. In this instance, we have a wonderful quote from a boycotter: "Eating Chick-Fil-A is eating anti-gay." That doesn't even make grammatical sense. But grammar is often the second thing to go when you organize a boycott (reason being the first).

My thought for this particular Gay Advocacy group is this: You look ridiculous. You sound shrill. This is not a fight worth picking. You're making a caricature of your cause, and if you follow this path of knee-jerk boycotts, you will turn people off to your message. See also, fundamentalist Christianity. I mean, do you really want your message to be: "Beware the evil evangelical Christians and their delicious, delicious chicken sandwiches"? Oh, by the way, thanks for reminding me that Chick-Fil-A makes delicious, delicious chicken sandwiches, because I'm really hungry.