Thursday, August 02, 2012

I'm a fucking boycott hipster.


I boycotted Chik-Fil-A before it was cool.

Well, okay, it wasn’t actually a boycott.  Boycott implies some organized effort, publicity, and telling other people to join you.  I just quit going there in something like 2009 (I remember very clearly the last time I was in one, because an airman who looked exactly like Freddie Mercury came in right before I was going to leave, but I stayed a little longer to bask in the glory of his moustache).

I quit going for many reasons, some big, some small.  From keeping the drinks behind the counter so I was essentially beholden to a fast food worker for refills (I hate that) to the unbearable bourgeoisie air on up to, yes, S. Truett Cathy’s position on marriage equality & generally irksome brand of Christianity (evangelicals are most guaranteed to send me over the edge; apologies to those of my readers who are), it became obvious that this just wasn’t a place for me or my family to go.  This isn’t to say I haven’t considered a stop there, ‘cause waffle fries, but that just isn’t enough to pull me in.

So you can imagine my bemusement when the “news” of Cathy’s opposition to marriage equality hit it big.  Again, this was a factor in my decision to eschew the restaurant three years ago.  It’s not information that hasn’t been out there, but all of a sudden boycotting Chik-Fil-A because of anti-gay sentiment is a cause celébrè on Facebook, complete with histrionic “If you support Chik-Fil-A, defriend me now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” declarations.  

I find this last bit richly stupid, for the record.  If you have people on your friends list who are against marriage equality, and CFA’s stance is so abhorrent to you, why are they even there to be defriended?  If they are good people in spite of their opposition to this one thing, why does support of a restaurant change things for you?  

To say nothing of the fact that a lot of people are fucking hypocrites about it.  I strongly suspect there is an inverse relationship between how hysterical a person is about others’ support of CFA now and the likelihood I could dig into their timeline and find a check-in there a year ago.  It’s almost as though being anti-gay is okay as long as Facebook doesn’t know about it.

Color me unimpressed.

No comments: