As you will notice, this post has no link. My friends over on Untwisting have been silent for a bit, so I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about something very recent and controversial.
First, let me be very clear. I don't think this is a Christian issue. "Family values" are not limited to Christianity. Mormons have lots of good family values - they're not Christians (don't even refer to themselves as such). I've heard/read things from Christians calling people to support CFA and I've heard that Christians shouldn't get involved. Honestly, I have a hard time saying that it's a "should" OR a "shouldn't" as far as Christianity is concerned. Do I support family values? Yes, but I don't go give my time, money, or vote to every person who says, "I support family values." So what's the difference? We'll get to that.
Second, I've been extremely (Extremely!!!) impressed and grateful for the responses I've read from multiple Christian sources regarding their take on this. There has not been name-calling, any kind of hate-speech (from the people I've read - I'm sure the bad stuff is out there), degrading of homosexuals, etc. It's been such a breath of fresh air to me, considering some of the things I've seen and blogged about recently. It really has been a wonderful source of encouragement.
On to the meat: Unfortunately, if you stand for "family values," you automatically get linked with Christianity, which is a highly dangerous thing for Christians. If you think that all those people who stood in line for so long the other day were ALL Christians, you have a VERY optimistic view of our country. They weren't. People who believe in "god" but don't do anything to try to follow in Christ's steps - those people don't know God. Those people showed up at CFA appreciation day, too.
Personally, if we'd had a CFA nearby (and not spent too much money this month already), I would have gone. But my reasons have much less to do with supporting family values, and much more to do with the fact that I don't like mayors of cities taking on more power than they have the right to. It's because the government started a boycott, and I would want to show my dissent with the GOVERNMENT - by supporting with my dollar what they have denounced with their words. I don't want to support CFA because I think their stance is right (although that's a danger, only supporting the ones that you agree with); I want to support CFA because I think they should be entitled to expressing their beliefs without it being called intolerant, without government officials declaring that they're going to try to shut them down or keep them out.
Honestly, CFA doesn't discriminate between the gay and the straight; they serve both alike. But government officials discriminated against people who support gay marriage and people who support traditional marriage. If you can't see who is really being intolerant here, you have a serious problem with logic.
THAT is why I would support CFA. And, I hope, that if such an issue comes up on the opposite side, if the government tries to shut someone down for their personal beliefs about something like, say abortion, I would again show my dissent with the government. So if the CEO of Nike (for example) said that he was pro-choice, the government absolutely should not try to shut them down, and I would want, again, to show my dissent with the government for such action.
People are allowed to believe what they want. God established that from the beginning. Our country has stood for the freedom to speak those beliefs, and I think that is a good and right freedom, and I will fight for it - when it means fighting for the rights of people who I agree with and for the rights of the people that I disagree with, even if they hate me.
For me, this is not about family values and my response is not dictated by my Christianity; this is about freedom and my response is dictated by my desire for our country to be the land of the free.
Just a couple of things. Overall, I agree with you, actually (shocker!). But you did err in a couple of matters. For one, Mormons do indeed consider themselves Christian. In fact they get EXTREMELY offended when people say they are not Christian. The other thing is that while CFA does indeed serve gay and straight people alike, that is as far as their tolerance goes. They do discriminate against gay people in their hiring practices, which is illegal (at least in some places, sexual orientation not being a protected status in all states). Overall though, I agree with you. :)
ReplyDeleteAh, perhaps the Mormon thing has changed over the years. My source on that was a little old, although I've personally never heard any of my Mormon friends refer to themselves as Christian.
ReplyDeleteAs for the other, it seems to me that would be an incredibly hard thing to judge overall, as most fast food chains seem to be run mostly by the store manager, not the company itself.
Also, I believe that people should have the right to hire whoever they want based on whatever they want - race, sexual orientation, gender, you name it. Obviously, where it's illegal, I would take issue with people breaking the law; but personally I would disagree with the law itself. People should have the right to deny me a job because I'm a woman. And they should have the right to deny someone else a job based on a disagreement of beliefs. In my opinion that's not intolerance; it's freedom to run YOUR business YOUR way.