The sky isn’t purple, and you’re not eating at Chick-fil-A to support free speech. Jerry Mahoney just wants you to tell the truth.
Originally appeared at Mommy Man: Adventures of a Gay Superdad
My daughter was looking out the car window on a particularly sunny day last week. “The sky is purple!” she announced.
The sky looked like it did on just about any other day. Except for a few puffy white clouds, it was bright, brilliant and blue. I vaguely remembered a few weeks earlier when I pointed out a picturesque sunset to the kids. It was purple that day, kind of. Why rock the boat? “Yeah,” I said. “The sky can be purple sometimes. It could also be orange or gray or…”
“The sky is blue!” my son interrupted. He shouted it, like a challenge, as if to shame me for humoring his sister.
“No! The sky is purple!” she countered from the seat beside him. “It’s purple!”
“It’s blue!”
“Purple!”
“Blue!”
“Purple! DADDDDDDDDY!”
Now it was a debate. Was the sky blue or purple? The dad in me said that I shouldn’t take sides. Respect both their viewpoints, claim the color of the sky is a matter of opinion or perspective. “The sky is however you see it!”, I’d cheerfully declare, then try to change the subject. Can’t we all just get along? There was just one problem.
The sky is fucking blue.
Everyone knows it. It’s not an opinion. It’s a fact. And not just any fact. It’s the fact people cite when they want an example of something that’s unquestionably factual. It’s the fact. The sky is blue. End of discussion. If I said anything else, I’d feel like an idiot or a fraud.
“The sky is blue,” I announced.
“No, it’s purple!”
“You’re wrong, Honey. It’s not purple. It’s blue.”
She started to cry, but I refused to give in. Whining doesn’t win you arguments in my minivan.
“It’s purple!!!!!!”
“Not true.”
“It is!”
“Nope.”
“WAAAAAAAAH!!!!!”
This little story pretty well sums up my feelings about the Chick-Fil-A controversy.
I’ve heard so many people claim they support the company as a matter of free speech. It’s not about homophobia, they insist, as they proudly post pictures of their #2 combo to their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or wherever else they can show it off to everyone they know.
There’s a voice in my head that says to just let it go. Maybe that’s how they see it. Let them say what they want. I’m sure as Hell not going to eat there, but who cares what anyone else does?
The problem is… the sky is fucking blue, and people who flaunt their support of Chick-Fil-A in the face of this controversy are bigots, plain and simple. It’s not my opinion, it’s a fact, and I’d be a fraud if I pretended otherwise. This falls squarely under the Judge Judy rule of “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
You’re not waiting in line 20 minutes for waffle fries to make a point about free speech, or you’d be just as quick to defend the speech of someone you disagree with, like me. You’re showing your “appreciation” for Chick-Fil-A because “I hate gay people” is so unpleasant to utter aloud. It’s much easier to say, “I’m going to eat this chicken sandwich.” Right now, appreciating Chick-Fil-A is the safest form of homophobia there is. No wonder so many people are flocking to their restaurants. And if anyone gets offended, you can plead innocent. “What? I don’t hate gay people. I just like fill-in-the-blank [breast tenders, religious tolerance, the First Amendment].”
If that’s your argument, then at the very best you’re kidding yourself. Let me make it perfectly clear, though, that you’re not fooling me. Chick-Fil-A has donated millions of dollars to anti-gay groups and has given every indication that they will continue to do so. We’re not just talking about organizations that oppose gay marriage. These are hate groups that claim that homosexuality can be cured, that being gay is linked to child molestation and that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to raise children. You can imagine why this would be a particularly sensitive issue to me.
There are kooks out there — kooks with real influence and national platforms — who think my kids should be “liberated” from me and my partner. You want to support the homophobia of people like Dan Cathy? This is where it’s headed, so don’t expect me to sit back and make nice.
You’re showing your “appreciation” for Chick-Fil-A because “I hate gay people” is so unpleasant to utter aloud.
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Yes, Dan Cathy is entitled to his opinions. On that, we can agree. He’s also entitled to make whatever donations he wants. The one thing he isn’t entitled to is my patronage, and if he’s actively supporting and encouraging the people who are out to hurt me and my kids, he’s not going to get it.
I’m not saying that everyone who dines at Chick-Fil-A is a bigot or my mortal enemy. It’s possible some people go there out of convenience or necessity. Maybe it’s the only place at the mall food court their kids will eat or it’s the only drive-thru they pass on their way home every night. It could be that they work there and rely on the employee discount. I’m not going to judge everyone who patronizes the business. Life’s complicated, and we all have our own reasons for doing the things we do.
But if you’re going to eat Chick-Fil-A to make some political point, at least have the courage to be honest about the point you’re making.
You don’t like gay people.
The sky is blue.
End of discussion
Photo of blue sky courtesy of Shutterstock
Interesting observation on The Belmont Club:
Money going to Romney is weighted money. It’s not just money. It’s not merely a thousand dollars. It’s a thousand dollars given in the knowledge that Obama may come for you. See Gibson Guitars. Adelson. IRS audits.
IOW, it indicates more than merely money, but money given into the wind of potential punishment. A higher level of support than indicated by the size of the check alone.
CFA supporters see this at one level or another and resist it.
Jerry, on the other hand….
Actually, the answer is that under most conditions most people *perceive* the sky to be blue in daylight on a cloudless day. It is definitely not true that the sky is blue roughly 8-12 hours a day depending on the time of year and where you are. “the sky is blue” is not an empirical fact. This may seem like nitpicking, but there’s a point: if something as empirically based as the sky being blue is conditional, then peoples reasons for eating at Chick-Fil-A are even more conditional. I don’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because a) there are no Chick-Fil-As where… Read more »
Jerry. Second issue: You support having a mosque in your town? Or anywhere? Checked their doctrine on gays?
No? Then admit it. You hate gay people.
Gee. This is easy and fun.
Richard, not all mosques are anti-gay, nor are all churches. The same argument could be made for churches. But all money from Chick-fil-A filters up to a foundation that is considered a hate-group and tries to deny LGBT+ people their human rights.
Joanna. Note I asked, rhetorically, if he had checked the doctrine on gays. I presumed he hadn’t. Nor would it occur to him. Supporting the nearest mosque would bump up his self-awarded good guy status. Finding out it supported gay execution would be inconvenient. Given the views of so many Muslims and various Muslim schools of thought in the world, it would seem that somebody supporting gay rights would think practically before anything else to inquire. Blizzards of such inquiries…not. “The same argument could be made for all churches.” Not exactly. With the exception of the Westboro corp, you’d have… Read more »
Off topic – some forms of color blindness can cause the inability to distinguish between blues, purples, and greens (blue-green color blindness is very common amongst Asians, we even use the same word for both colors)
Maybe you wanna get your daughter checked out?
I was fairly young (I think 8) when I first saw the movie “The Blues Brothers.” It was on some cable channel and had been *heavily* edited to remove foul language and sex references. Nonetheless, I loved the movie. It was probably the hardest I had ever laughed in my life. But I was confused by one scene. In the movie a neo-Nazi rally is depicted. I was confused by this and remember asking my mother why anyone would let a hate group like that march. She explained to me that in America we believe in freedom of speech, and… Read more »
[Whispering cheekily] – In many cultures the sky is green.
I guess the question is, would the same response take place if some junk food company claimed that the Nazis were the master race? I’d aniticipate less proud bloggers posting their pictures.
That’s the trouble with trying to vote or protest with your wallet – it’s too open. And when anti-gay rights groups cite all the support that they got for their views, suddenly making a vague gesture with your stomach doesn’t seem that clever.
“The problem is… the sky is fucking blue, and people who flaunt their support of Chick-Fil-A in the face of this controversy are bigots, plain and simple. It’s not my opinion, it’s a fact, and I’d be a fraud if I pretended otherwise. ”
Wow, I agree with your article and I even agree with this sentiment but please don’t conflate opinion with fact, it isn’t a fact, it is your opinion, an opinion I agree with but it is still an opinion
Nobody has to like anybody. The only requirements are : be civil, no violence (unless in self-defense) and tolerate other people. And there is a pretty big leap from “I don’t like the idea of gay marriage” to “I hate homosexuals”.
Nobody has to like gay people, but we do not-as a society-have the right to deny anyone equal civil rights.
And YES marriage is a civil right as it is a civil process with civil benefits (i.e. taxes and property inheritance, and many more).
You can say that it’s not that anti-marriage equality people don’t actually HATE or DISLIKE homosexuals, but they want to deny them their equal civil rights. Doesn’t that mean something to you about how they feel about the people themselves? That they are somehow below heterosexual people? That sounds like hate.
IS marriage a ‘civil right’?. How exactly would such a ‘right’ be enforced? A single person can’t go to court and sue to have society find him/her a spouse. Any ‘right’ to marriage is to equal access to the legal institution that is civil marriage. To whom does that right of equal access accrue? To couples? or to individuals? And if to individuals, is not that right to equal access to civil marriage as defined by statute? I think there are some significant legal questions here, both as to substantive law and to procedure. Does it make me a ‘bigot’… Read more »
YES it’s a civil right for couples to marry. One could extrapolate this argument to poly-marriages too, but I have yet to determine the depth to which I agree with that. I think there are also very solid reasons to say that single people should have the civil right to the same tax deductions that married people have. But again, that’s separate. As long as there are civil benefits to being married and forming a family as a legally-married couple by civil ceremony, it is the right of any consenting couple to have equal access to that civil institution. I… Read more »
I did not intend my comment to be any kind of substantive argument about the legalities of marriage, rather an example of issues about which reasonable people can disagree. Is it your opinion that reasonable people cannot possibly disagree about gay marriage? Is any kind of civil discourse on this subject possible? I had earlier tried to post a comment in which I asked whether Mr Mahoney was Ok with government officials using zoning laws to punish people (in this case, the owner of Chick-fil-a) for voicing unpopular opinions. For whatever reason my comment has not appeared. Do you feel… Read more »
I will check that comment right now, we’re low on moderators so sometimes it takes a while for them to get through. But yes, I think we’re rapidly approaching a time in history where oppressing LGBTQ people and families makes you not a good person. It doesn’t make you a bad person FOREVER but in my mind, it ranks alongside believing that people of different races shouldn’t be allowed to marry one another. I don’t think you can be a racist and a good person. I think you can have good things about you even if you’re racist, but no,… Read more »
The zoning issue is beside the point. I never said I supported that, and frankly, I don’t have to defend it. I’m happy to debate the points I actually made, but I don’t have time to indulge your desire to change the subject.
Then you are ignoring one of the justifications people gave for going to Chick-Fil-A.
You are saying, “just admit you hate gay people,” when some people are saying, “we do not like the idea of the government restricting business on the basis of the ideology of the proprietor.” That is the matter of free speech, which you have suggested is not the real reason people went to Chick-Fil-A.
So, actually, you did bring up the zoning issue, even if only by accident and implication, only to discard it as pretense.
-Jut
Slavery was legal at one time. Women were denied the right to vote at one point. Even if the statute defines marriage as between a man and a woman, that doesn’t mean that the statute SHOULD limit it to heterosexual couples nor does it mean that the statute shouldn’t be changed. When people equate opposition to gay marriage with bigotry, it is because there is no justifiable reason that marriage rights should not be extended to same sex couples. A statute that should and CAN be changed is not justification.
@ AnonymousDoug- I am not familiar with the individual states regulations on marriage for straight couples (being from Canada), but your post questioning the civil liberty of marriage raised a question for me. Would you feel comfortable with a government denying a straight couple the right to be wed (assuming the current laws)? It seems to me that straight couples undoubtedly have and fully expect legal access to marriage. What makes gay couples less deserved of that right?
I think every INDIVIDUAL is entitled to equal access to the institution of civil marriage AS IT IS DEFINED BY STATUTE. But, the voters and their elected representatives have the power to define that legal institution. I also think that a state legislature could completely abolish civil marriage, regardless of any claimed ‘right to marry’. I believe that the voters or a state legislature would be within their rights to create same-sex marriage through legislation, but I do not believe that the courts can legitimately legislate same-sex marriage into existence. Without explicitly saying so, some gay marriage advocates seem to… Read more »
I agree. A person can like or dislike anyone they want as long as they respect that other person’s rights, but the state shouldn’t be allowed to deny anyone the benefits of citizenship. A civil wedding is an acknowledgement of the state to a contract.
I’m not talking about people who “don’t like the idea of gay marriage”. I’m talking about a very specific subset of people who rally behind an anti-gay politician and voluntarily wait in lines that stretch out the door just to give money to a company that donates part of its profits to anti-gay groups. Those are people who want to send a message, and that message is “I don’t like gay people”. I didn’t use the word “hate” either, though for a lot of those people, I’m sure it applies.
I think the same thing is true of a ‘subset’ of either side of any controversial issue. And I’m guessing that a lot of those folks could also be justly asked whether they “just don’t like(insert group) people. I am troubled by the increasing frequency in political debate where one side accuses some part of the opposition of ‘hatred’, implying that everyone taking that side is acting out of some kind of hatred. Some gay marriage advocates seem particularly prone to this, preferring to call all of their interlocutors ‘bigots’, and imply that no reasonable person could possibly disagree for… Read more »
I haven’t and won’t eat at Chick-Fil-A. The first time I ever heard of Chick-Fil-A was when that cashier gave the two Asian customers racist receipts. I don’t know and am not suggesting that it is indicative of the company, but when the first thing you hear about a company is bad, it affects you. Since I wasn’t planning on eating there, I haven’t paid attention to the boycotts for anti-gay contributions. I support gay rights, the right for gays to marry, the repeal of DADT, inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected class in employment discrimination law, etc., but… Read more »
This comment conflicts me, because it’s clear your intentions towards gay people are good and that you are opposed (in a conscious way, at least) to homophobia. I’m at a loss, though, about why you included all that stuff about films. Why is it relevant to this argument? It might have made sense if the original article was about male nudity, but it just isn’t. The fact is, instituationalised homophobia is alive and well, and it can affect the way people act even if they don’t realise it. Gay men are often considered inherently sexual just by existing. Do you… Read more »
“I’’m at a loss, though, about why you included all that stuff about films. Why is it relevant to this argument? It might have made sense if the original article was about male nudity, but it just isn’t.” It’s because the article said to be honest. I was being completely honest, full disclosure. Some people might consider avoiding looking at nude men relevant. It doesn’t particularly bother me like when I watch straight porn, but I don’t really need to see it otherwise. There was an article on GMP discussing Magic Mike. Many of the men here criticized the women… Read more »