Huckajesus celebrates Chick-Fil-A's commitment to gay hate. Yeah, that's right in line with Jesus' instruction to "Love one another." And then there's Rick Warren's tweet, celebrating the awesome turnout for Chick-Fil-A's "Hate a Gay"
August 2, 2012

Huckajesus celebrates Chick-Fil-A's commitment to gay hate. Yeah, that's right in line with Jesus' instruction to "Love one another."

And then there's Rick Warren's tweet, celebrating the awesome turnout for Chick-Fil-A's "Hate a Gay" Day.

Woo. How loving. How accepting of others. Way to "meet them where they are," Rick Warren.

Why all the Chick-Fil-A "hate the gays" action from certain sectors of their customer base? From the LA Times, what Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy said on the air:

"We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit," he told the Biblical Recorder. On the radio, he observed: "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage."

Cathy's outburst ignited a very predictable outbreak of partisan posturing centered on the choice: ban or boycott?

Boycotts were organized on Facebook and Twitter, which brought out the right wing in all their crispy glory, organizing a "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day" today. This is what Warren and Huckabee were celebrating.

Let me share the fallout. I wonder if Chick-Fil-A expected this. Jane Devin, a writer living in Tucson who also happens to be gay, drove by a Chick-Fil-A where the lines were longer than she had ever seen in her time there:

I drove by the Chik-Fil-A on Broadway Street in Tucson and the drive-thru line was backed up to the street. I’ve never seen more than five cars in their drive-thru before and now, at 9:00 at night, there were dozens and dozens of them.

My reaction surprised me. It felt like all those people—young men in pickup trucks, moms with kids, older couples—were stepping on my chest. It felt like hidden bigotry had come out to make itself known. It felt like hatred and rejection. It felt like go home, you’re not wanted here. My response was visceral. My gut ached, a sob caught in my throat, and my eyes welled up with tears. I couldn’t drive away fast enough. And I’m not a person who cries easily, at least not usually, but I cried all the way home. Just those couple of minutes of seeing how many people are anti-gay, anti-me, hurt more than I could have ever expected.

And worse yet:

Perhaps because I am something of a hermit—and maybe because my sexual orientation isn’t blatantly obvious to most people—I felt pretty safe here.

I don’t feel safe here anymore.

That line at Chik-Fil-A touched me like a banner of unwelcome, like a vigilante caravan of people who could hardly wait for the opportunity to openly express their belief that I was an enemy to be conquered—someone they longed to see be put back in her place as an anamoly, a threat to society, a pervert, a half-person.

It broke my heart.

This is what hate does to people. It rends them.

Here's a memo to the Christians out there: Churches are under no obligation to perform same sex marriages even if the law of the country says the state must allow them. This is why we have separation between church and state. The state can't tell your churches what requirements must be met for a pastor to perform a marriage ceremony, and you can't tell the state they can't sanction marriages you won't perform. That's the country we live in. Get used to it.

This Chick-Fil-A nonsense is not about people going to war over buying out the local fried chicken joint to support free speech or enterprise, or whatever excuse they're giving. It's about people going to war because other people are different. Different is justification in their little minds for hate.

It's about sending a public, ugly, hateful message. Jane got it loud and clear. I imagine many others did too.

I hope Pastors Huckabee and Warren feel good about what they've said and done here. Jane has already written off Christianity because of attitudes like this, long before now. Yet both of you stand there and claim to be all holy and righteous and pious while you're busy at work publicly humiliating and threatening another person's way of life. A way of life that in no way threatens yours.

I daresay you wouldn't know Jane is gay if you ran into her on the street. But she would know you hated her for it.

Here's another tweet from Rick Warren:

Yes, well. I see what you did with the first tweet, so this one is worse than meaningless. You tried to disgrace every gay person in the country with that little celebration of the open demonstration of disdain. You should consider your tweets to be a running commentary, one not separate from another. When viewed in their totality, a picture emerges that is quite different from the pious, righteous man you claim to be.

Yes, Jane would know what you thought of her, and Jane would be right.

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