Do you think the bluster and social network righteousness ends up being a win or a lose for same sex marriage and GLBT equal protection (or protected class?) advocates?

I feel like one of the things that sort of becomes hard to ignore in this discussion is that people are drawing direct equivalence between Cathy's "support for traditional marriage" or conservative groups and homophobia or hate.

If you are already firmly in the same sex marriage supporting camp, this connection may seem to make perfect sense.

But if you are friends with a lot of traditional marriage fans who accept and love individual gay people and/or you are familiar with a lot of the positive community support Chick-fil-a and Winshape provide in other areas, then the push back against Chick-fil-a seems overplayed.

If seemingly forced to choose sides, I think some otherwise weak supporters of same-sex marriage will throw in with the traditional "Christian" IceDream and illiterate cow loving side.

If the main plan/hope to advance same-sex marriage remains a state-by-state initiative, then I think this mini-culture war may end up being a set back in a lot of more moderate to conservative states and the faster it dies out, maybe the better for the same-sex marriage cause. Chick-fil-a isn't probably likely enough to suffer from the boycott in these states anyway.

If the overall same-sex marriage advocacy momentum shifts to one based more on a civil rights challenge in the courts, then it doesn't matter so much.

But this Chick-fil-a tempest-in-a-sweet-tea glass is making facebook a whole lot less interesting.

I voted sometimes. I do everything possible to avoid Wal-Mart, but sometimes I still will make an occasional purchase there.

Regarding this CFA boycott/support, I wish for all of my gay and lesbian friends to have the opportunity to marry and have their union recognized legally. However, if I try to institute a Chik-Fil-A ban in our house, you all will shortly be astounded by a shocking news story of a four year old murdering her mother. My daughter loves those nuggets, waffle fries, and their playground. (She also likes McDonald's, but I just can't.) Will we go there less often? Probably, but we won't be cutting it out altogether.

I've never had Chick-Fil-A because there aren't any here, but I'm really starting to wonder what the heck can possibly be so great about chicken in any form. Is there some addictive additive in this chicken that makes people go crazy about it? There is no food that I would ever say "I couldn't live without it", especially not chicken, which is the most flavorless meat on the planet.

I actually have been quite impressed with McDonald's and their relationship with Chipotle - it seems that so many things about Chipotle are almost the anti-McDonald's. It's quite interesting.

** The above comment was almost completely irrelevant to this discussion. Particularly since I am not currently and have not in the past boycotted McDonald's or Chipotle.

I find the quality of Chick-fil-a products to be the best of the fast food market in Georgia. (There's some stuff we don't have, so I can't say I've tried everything.) They do a lot with flavoring the breading and the marinade, so it's pretty flavorful for chicken breast.

And, if you have the self-discipline to order appropriately, you could actually eat pretty healthy food there. They have some beautiful salads, side salads, grilled chicken sandwich that doesn't taste like cardboard, etc.

They also do some seasonal marketing of different shakes and desserts which means even though there's a limited enough range of products to ensure pretty good quality of each, there's also enough variety that very frequent customers can be pleasantly surprised periodically with a favorite item that might not always be available.

The stores, with the exception of some in airports, are almost always really clean and super well-managed. You get fast, polite service from everyone in the store.

I live within 45 minutes of the original Chick-fil-a and the corporate offices, so the local operators may have to be on their toes more than they are in other regions. It wouldn't surprise me if the future you got from Atlanta, the weaker the experience is.

I wouldn't expect any of this to sway someone philosophically opposed to their corporate spending, but it's consistently tasty.

It will be interesting to see if the kiss-in folks get any satisfaction. I'm a little worried that some customers might give them grief, but I'd expect the staff to be trained how not to handle stuff.

As I said before, I do not like Chick-Fil-A except the waffle fries. I am not much of a chicken person but I can get good chicken biscuits and good chicken sandwiches elsewhere.

/The quality of Chick-Fil-A's food has nothing to do with anything. LOL.

I don't know. It's much easier to boycott something that you don't like in the first place.

I'd probably vote for same-sex marriage if it comes up in Georgia, but I'm going to continue to go to Chick-fil-a.

On the other hand, I would love for Chili's to do something to alienate all my friends. . .

I am not boycotting Chick-Fil-A. I do not eat there anyway because I do not like the food. Perhaps other people who do not like the food feel the same way.

But, I see what you are saying. As I said in this thread, I hate Walmart and have boycotted it for years with exception for a few times that they had the best service. It sucks.

It's hard to live in Atlanta and not go to CFA. They're EVERYWHERE (and also consistently clean and with good service).

LOL at Chili's. I feel the same way about Fridays and Applebees.

True story. I did like Chick-fil-A but I doubt they miss my business, I stopped going there years ago, and while live-in might get an earful when he chooses to go, I don't actually stop him from going. He just gets a side of judgement with his waffle fries.

If you like it and don't see a problem with going, that's legitimate.

LOL. Maybe you can convince your server you'll leave a huge tip if they're really extra rude and awful to them.

And instead of movie tie-in toys, the put things like books in their kid's meals. We always appreciated that.

Isn't that kinda like the kid that gives up asparagus for Lent, though? ;)


I'm just sick of it on Facebook, because I'm convinced that intelligent discussion and Facebook are mutually exclusive. Add a Like button and suddenly everyone's IQ drops 35 points.

The problem with FB, too, is you can like something and it blasts it to every friend you have. There should be a selective way to do that bc I have friends that I wouldn't mind sending those likes to and other friends that it will start a firestorm.

Totally cracked me up...SO true! That and the fact that the playground (at least in my neck of the woods) is CLEAN. Seriously. I read somewhere that they have a staffer wipe the whole thing down inside and out first thing in the AM and at closing as well. McD's always just looks/smells like a case of norwalk virus waiting to happen...

This. I've always appreciated that - they definitely tend to promote literacy/education more than other fast food chains.

As for the boycott, will we cut down? Probably, but I'm trying to do that anyway. We typically went about 2x per month, now we go about 1x per month.

This is one reason why I rarely "like" things on fb.