Hectic Day

I figured today would be a different day.  Instead of going through my random thoughts like I usually do every Wednesday.

As you all know, today was Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day as decreed by Mike Huckabee and others on the political right.  I'll give the rundown.

Chick-Fil-A President Dan Cathy was asked by the Baptist Press, a Conservative media outlet, about his take on marriage.  Cathy said he supported traditional marriage between a man and a woman.  That's pretty much all he said.  He didn't say anything offensive.  He didn't condemn anyone in the interview.  He simply said what he has read in the Bible.

Now, the backlash from this has been amazing.  Gays and lesbians were immediately calling for a boycott of all Chick-Fil-A stores.  The mayors of both Boston, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois basically said Chick-Fil-A would not be welcome in their cities.  Now my issue with that is this.  Chick-Fil-A is a billion dollar franchise.  It made 4.1 billion dollars just last year.  Now, I may be a little off on my statistics, but isn't the unemployment rate at about 8 or 9 percent?  Chicago and Boston have millions of people, I'm sure a lot of them are without work right at this moment.  To deny a company a chance to give people jobs because you don't like something they said.  You make your economy stay stagnant because of a belief someone has.

At the same time, I have an issue with those who went to Chick-Fil-A simply to "show those gays who's boss."  Look, I love Chick-Fil-A.  It's a great place to eat.  They have good milkshakes.  However, just to show some people up is just silly.

I met Truett Cathy when I was in college.  He was nothing but nice and gracious to everyone he encountered.  He's been that way in hiring practices as well.  In fact, I'm pretty sure there are homosexuals that work at Chick-Fil-A who haven't received an ounce of persecution, and I'm almost positive that's how Mr. Cathy would have it.

Look, the Bible is pretty clear on pretty much everything.  However it seems like opponents of homosexuality like to gloss over the loving thy neighbor part of the Scripture.  It seems like people just want to hate and condemn homosexuality instead of be a friend to them.

It seems like there is a totally messed up view of tolerance among Americans.  Tolerance doesn't mean accepting negative things.  It means willing to help those who need help despite their differences.  Yes, that means we can get over ourselves and try to be cordial with everyone.  We tried it when I was at Liberty.  The late Dr. Falwell had a summit at Thomas Road Baptist Church between some pretty strong Conservatives and a group of homosexual Christians.  No, that is not an oxymoron.  It went well.  Met some interesting and very nice people.

The point is, we all can work well together.  We all can be tolerant without being hateful.  We all can work towards the peace without compromising what God says.

Sometimes I wish people could be as free to love one another as dogs are to their owners...