Chick-fil-A
president Dan Cathy supports traditional Bible family values, and because he
does many have condemned him and his company as being anti-homosexual and
anti-marriage equality. And because many think this way Boston Mayor Thomas Menino
has suggested that Chick-fil-A be banned in Boston. We have come a long way in
America. I’m just not sure which way that is.
Let me put my
cards on the table: First, I’m a vegetarian, and while I suspect the lives of
the chickens whose corpses end up being served at Chick-fil-A are unhappy ones,
I am not one to ban restaurants simply because the food served there is the
result of brutal abuse.
Second I am
against Boston banning things. The reason for this is more historical than
political. I’m from Springfield, MA, and the first book to be banned in Boston
was a 1651 criticism of Puritanism written by William Pynchon, the founder of
my fair city. Mr. Pynchon fled back to England to avoid the pressure coming his
way from Boston, and his doing so almost caused Springfield to align itself
with nearby Connecticut, which would have led to my being born in Connecticut,
which is something I find appalling, although for no apparent reason.
Third, I respect
and do my best to live by Bronze Age biblical food values. I don’t eat pig,
lobster, shrimp, or any of the other abominations God created for us not to
eat. So I am not anti-Bible by any means. In fact I’m pro biblical family
values as well.
The Bible is
clearly in favor of unwed couples living together and even having children. The
Hebrew Bible never says Adam and Eve were married, nor—cowardly English
translations aside—does the Hebrew ever call them husband and wife. Polygamy
too is fine: Abraham had two wives, Jacob had two wives and two concubines, and
King Solomon had 700 wives. So let Utah be Utah! Nor does the Bible condemn Eve
for giving birth to her own grandchildren via her sons (there were no other
women back then), or Lot’s daughters having kids by their father because they
were too lazy to walk to the next town and find some guys hanging out around a
well. And then there is Lot himself offering his daughters to be gang raped by
the men of Sodom, Abraham twice pimping his first wife to Pharaoh, and the
option to “marry” women carried away as war booty. None of this is counter to
the Bible’s family values, so, hey, what’s not to like?
If we are going to
complain about people violating biblical values let’s start with St. Paul who
condemns lesbians when the Bible (his Bible!) only condemns gay men. Which
brings me back to Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A.
If you are going
to live your life by the mores of Bronze Age literature, Mr. Cathy, you can’t
do much better than the Bible. All I ask is that you abide by the actual values
themselves, and not your own inventions.
And please, Mayor
Menino, don’t ban Chick-fil-A. You just might cause a mass emigration to Connecticut.
2 comments:
It's always fascinating watching Christians cherry-pick their way through the Bible. You never know what any given Christian is going to believe/not believe, value/not value, support/not support. It makes life interesting, to say the least.
On another note, I haven't eaten at Chick-fil-A for many years -- and definitely won't be changing that anytime soon -- because they use way too much styrofoam, which is not easily recycled by people en masse. Is it good Christian values to make business decisions that don't care for the environment as well? I know, I know. I'm opening up a whole new can of worms just with that! C'est la vie!
If we banned, shunned, and boycotted everyone with an ignorant, silly, hurtful idea, it would get pretty lonely. One would have to resort to talking to oneself and may discover that should be shunned too.
People brave enough to say what they think are at least helping us to calibrate where we are as a society. Even if that is scary sometimes.
Post a Comment