Eat
Chikn ’n Calm Dwn
Do you recall when you could purchase a sandwich, and no one
would turn it into a political statement?
Not
too long ago, the CEO of Chick-fil-a, Dan Cathy, gave an interview to the Baptist Press. In the course of that
interview, he made a few statements against gay marriage. As a consequence, fellow
democrats grew furious with me, because I continued to eat at Chick-fil-a.
I have a bias. I like Chick-fil-a. It’s one of the
healthier options in the fast food world. I can purchase real lemonade instead of soda that masquerades as lemonade. I can
purchase fruit instead of French fries. I can ask the cook not to butter my
bun. Have you tried their spicy, chicken sandwich? It’s life-changing.
When
I, armed with such a chicken sandwich, walked into a room filled with my colleagues,
you would’ve thought I had walked in wearing a Klansman’s uniform. “Don’t you
know that the CEO of that restaurant hates gay people?” they asked me.
Apparently, I’m supposed to boycott Chick-fil-a in
protest to Cathy’s remarks. Such a plan brings the obvious question to my mind:
Why? What’s the endgame? Put Chuck-fil-a out of business? That seems harsh.
What about Chick-fil-a’s thousands of employees? Why should they suffer just
because their boss expressed a stupid opinion (which he is at liberty to express).
When JCPenny’s ran television ads featuring Ellen
DeGeneres, many republicans boycotted the store because of DeGeneres’s
homosexuality. That wasn’t fair (or intelligent). Boycotting Chick-fil-a
strikes me as wrong for the same reasons. You don’t put thousands of jobs at
risk because someone made a statement with which you take issue (I’m
unconvinced JCPenny’s intended any kind of statement beyond “buy our stuff”).
“We just want Cathy to know that we don’t agree with his
remarks,” my fellow democrats told me.
Truly?
They find that necessary? Cathy knew ahead of time that people would
passionately disagree with his remarks. Does anyone believe that she or he can
change Cathy’s opinion by boycotting his products? They won’t. They shouldn’t,
because a boycott is not the same as a thoughtful counterargument. We should
not measure the merits of a comment based upon how many chicken sandwiches that
commenter sold.
Not
buying a chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-a because the company’s CEO is
intolerant . . . ? In what way is that not ironic? We could all boycott Disney
out of business; would that prove Disney wrong for its tolerance of
homosexuality? Of course not.
Cathy’s
remarks are arrogant, prejudiced, and outdated, but putting Chick-fil-a out of
business (which you won’t) does nothing to prove that. A boycott against
Chick-fil-a will only cause its shift managers to cut hours and fire employees
to compensate for its lost revenue.
There
exist exceptions. A boycott against Apple—one that demands the corporation
improve labor conditions in China—seems sensible. Such a boycott would present
a reasonable, obtainable goal. Likewise, in the fifties, boycotts against local
buses made sense because those who took part in the boycott possessed a clearly
stated goal (they wanted these companies to allow African-American passengers
to sit wherever they pleased).
Cathy’s
personal points of view seem the only thing with which democrats take issue,
and a boycott will do nothing to alter those opinions. It would prove a
different story if the Cathy’s restaurants disallowed service to homosexuals,
because that’s a policy that we, as customers, could demand changed.
Yes,
we can change someone’s opinion, even
Cathy’s, but not by refusing to eat his food. If we boycott a product because
its CEO hates cross-eyed dwarves, we might put him out of business (and his
employees on the street), but he’s still going to hate cross-eyed dwarves. We
haven’t presented an argument for why he shouldn’t hate them.
