Exercising My Freedom of Speech

The whole Chick-Fil-A ordeal had pretty much blown over now, thankfully, and people are now starting to move on to other things like.. Pepsi.  More on that in a second.

Now, I kept fairly quiet through the whole thing, and while I don't want this to be a politically-influenced blog I just feel the need to rant about a couple of things. 

First, how on earth did it all become about the 1st Amendment?  I'm sorry but no one's 1st Amendment rights were or are compromised.  The CEO has every right to state his views, and as far as I know no one tried to come in and sue him for saying those things. Why?  BECAUSE OF HIS 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.  And as far as I know, no one is trying to do away with the 1st Amendment either.  So to all who lined up for hours to buy some oh-so-healthy fast food goodness under the guise of supporting freedom of speech- congratulations, you successfully supported nothing but a multi-million dollar company whose rights were never compromised in the first place.  

Yes, everyone still has their freedom of speech.  However, that DOES NOT make you immune to backlash from people whom you offend with your words.  So, boycotting Chick-Fil-A because you don't agree with the CEO's values does not equal trying to take away someone's 1st Amendment rights.  Just to clear that up.

However, if you really went to Chick-Fil-A to show you objection to same-sex marriage, your money could have been so much more well-spent if you had just given it directly to the anti-LGBT groups that Chick-Fil-A supports.  

Which, my friends, is the real issue.

Now, it's one thing to have a differing opinion (though, as the CEO of a large company I think it's quite unprofessional to make such statements against a group of people like that).  While I feel his views are quite bigoted and outdated, whatever.  I get it.  Gay marriage is against his religious beliefs.  Good for him, he's doing such a good job following his beliefs and not getting a gay marriage.  BUT!  Supporting groups whose goal is to take away the rights of the gay community, that is a lot different.  

Let's just try looking at it in a different light.

As bogus as it is, please pretend for a second that Mr. Cathy was not opposed to gay marriage, but was instead opposed to Christianity (yes, I know.. when Hell freezes over, but this is for example's sake).  Now, if he had publicly announced that he was anti-Christian, I can guarantee there would be backlash there.  But, what if in addition to that he was also monetarily supporting anti-Christian groups who were working to take away people's rights to practice Christianity.  Sounds absurd, right?  But there is absolutely no difference.  Oh, you don't agree with homosexuality?  Well, let's just take away the rights of homosexuals!  What, you don't agree with Christianity?  Alright, let's just put an end to that shall we?

Now, in addition to all of the chicken hubbub, I've started seeing this too:

Okay, now this smells so strongly of double-standards I think I might gag.  The people opposed to Dan Cathy's views chose to boycott the company and all these people come out wailing about freedom of speech and blah blah I support you Chick-Fil-A let's buy some chicken sandwiches.  But now here comes Pepsi, not even saying anything against Christianity, but you know hey they don't want to use the word God so let's boycott their God-less cans.  I honestly don't get it.. what happened to the freedom of speech you all were going on about a couple weeks ago? 
[Edit: Apparently this isn't new, but that it's even resurfacing is still very very sad.)

We all have different views and different lifestyles.  We're not going to always agree and that's just fine.  Boycott the chicken burgers or line up for hours to buy them, whatever suits your fancy.  But let's not take away people's rights because you don't agree with them.  So many of my good friends and family are devout Christians, and I would definitely have something to say if there were people out there trying to make sure they could no longer live the life that gives them purpose and happiness.  But, you know what?  Their rights are already protected and are not being threatened.  I only wish to see the same for my good friends and family who are gay.