Chick-Fil-A. I’m not even sure how they came up with that name. It’s not even a real name. Burger King. Taco Bell. Dairy Queen. These are real names. Chick is a real word. I don’t know what ‘fil’ is, and then they tacked an ‘a’ at the end. Not sure what that’s all about.

But I digress. This post is not about the absurdity of a name.

I have a friend who “confessed” on fb recently about her love of the chicken and waffle fries there. Confessed is a correct term, because she did it knowing that judgement would come down on her.

It’s easy for me to stand my moral high ground and say that I don’t go there because I don’t want my money to go to hate groups. To me, all these hate groups are equal. It doesn’t matter to me if you call yourselves the Ku Klux Klan or the Freedom Defense Initiative. In some cases, I equate them to terrorists when they are seeking out with the hopes of killing those that fall into a certain category; especially if that classification is something a person is born into and not a behavior they control.

Anyway, the point of this is that it’s easy for me to stand my moral high ground, as I’ve NEVER HAD CHICK-FIL-A. The only actual difference it made in my life is that I don’t wave at the costumed individual standing outside Chick-Fil-As anymore.

I’ve never had it. It could be some magical thing, that’s irresistible. I’ll never know now. I’m ok with that. I’ve also never had Auntie Ann’s pretzels at the mall. I figure there’s gotta be some sort of crack in it or something that makes everyone that ever had one go gaga, and HAVE to have it when they walk by the store at the mall. *please note, that they probably don’t have actual crack-cocaine. This is a metaphor, not literal.

But it’s just standing on some moral hill, and waving your finger when you don’t really know all the practices of the places you patronage.

Like, there’s this place here called Mudgies. OMG, I LOVE MUDGIES. But what do I know about Mr. or Mrs. Mudgie themselves? Or any locally owned place? What do we know about where any owner of any food establishment donates their money to?

I guess it’s just that the chick-fil-a guy (Dan Cathy) made it publically known that he not only is opposed to the lives of fellow human beings, but he financially supports hate groups so that they can exist. So that they can go to other countries, and give lectures on “family values”. Lectures that lead to actual LAWS requiring that if you are openly the person you are, and that person is gay, you should be publicly stoned to death. That’s just extreme. But he funds it, and lets it be publicly known that he FUNDS it, with REAL MONEY. If he’s so public about what he’s doing, then I’m going to publicly say I don’t support them with my money.

Chick-Fil-A gives millions to the WinShape Foundation, who then allocates money across various “family groups”. But by family groups, they really mean groups that enable parents to help their kids “pray the gay away”, or “electrocute the gay away” more like it. All kinds of programs and camps, some that use various forms of “reparative therapy” including electro-shock therapy. One such group is called Exodus International, they sent a man to a conference where he spoke of “family values”. Well, this had some impact on those that are in the Uganda government, and based on what they took away from what the Exodus man had to say, they came up with the legislation that they should kill their homosexuals. To me, that’s encouraging murder, but murder based on who you are. Which is like terrorism to me.

So, that’s why I’m opposed to it. Anyone is free to think what they want. But I’ll be damned if my hard-earned dollar is ending up funding a hate group.

But God help me if I ever find out that Mudgies is not right in any way. Then, I’ll be holding some sort of prayer group. Or something.

*I’d like to note that I’ve been able to have my company place orders at Mudgie’s, and I know they use local products. I like supporting small, local companies.

Update: I’ve thought about this at length now, and I think I can relate it to my love of Papa John’s pizza. I despise “Papa John” himself for how he values his profit over his employees (even though reports have shown that having health insurance & high employee morale actually helps companies more than it hurts them). While I despise him, I do love his pizza. Enough that I’ve had it once in the last 5 years (since learning of his views on healthcare).