Everyone else on the planet has weighed in on the Chick-fil-A issue. I guess I will too.
Being married confers a number of advantages, both legal and personal. Married couples enjoy special privileges related to taxes, government benefits, medical, and many more. (See a list here.) Further, for many people, being married represents the ultimate commitment to someone they care deeply about. Therefore, the notion of denying these many benefits to a loving couple simply because they happen to be homosexual is untenable to me. Civil unions don’t cut it. I believe in equal rights, and telling a subset of the population that they get civil unions while the rest of us get marriage is akin to segregated bathrooms and drinking fountains.
S. Truett Cathy, the founder and chairman of Chick-fil-A, is a devout Southern Baptist and believes very strongly in the notion of “traditional marriage“. I believe that Mr. Cathy has the free speech rights to hold whatever views he chooses, no matter how obnoxious. The problem is that whenever a corporation’s resources are used to actively further a hateful ideal, then anyone providing income to that corporation is promoting the same, albeit indirectly. In other words, every time I sit down to enjoy a Chick-fil-A sandwich and waffle fries, I’m providing the means for the Chick-fil-A corporation to actively trample other’s rights.