In the chicken sandwich squabble, masses turn out to support Chick-Fil-A

    Some people, at least, agree with me that Chick-Fil-A has been treated unfairly because of the comments of its president to his church newspaper opposing gay marriage.
    Whether or not you agree with the man, he ought to have the right to express his opinion without his company coming under attack. Most of us are used to liberal company owners having a host of opinions we may not agree with, yet we don't go ballistic every time we disagree.
    Part of that fallout of these vitriolic attacks has been the death by heart attack of the company's public relations director, Donald Perry. Now he no doubt had a bad heart anyway, but certainly the unprecedented stress of the past few weeks didn't help matters.
    Following an amazing showing of intolerance against the company, which included its exclusion from expansion into the city of Chicago and other locations, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged his viewers to treat Wednesday, August 1 as "Chick-Fil-A Day," to show support for the company's president and for free speech.
    I decided to check things out, and let's just say that it looks like the local Chick-Fil-A has done a month's worth of business in one day. At 6 p.m. Wednesday, the parking lot was full, cars were parked in the mall parking lot, the restaurant was packed, and the drive-in had cars backed all the way out of the parking lot, down through the mall entrance, with four to six cars in line waiting in line to turn in off University Ave. In the photo above, the Chick-Fil-A is on the right. The line of cars on the left is waiting for their chance to turn into the Chick-Fil-A parking lot for the drive-thru. There are cars on University also waiting. (I decided they didn't need my business and enjoyed a sub from Firehouse).
    I said three months ago that now was a terrible time to have a nasty fight over gay rights. We've gone through a period of pretty massive change, and I think folks need a short period of stasis. For whatever reason there are those who want to drag this issue onto the political front burner and into presidential politics, and I think it's going to do more harm than good for everyone.
    It's absolutely insane that we've managed to make a chicken sandwich into a political issue, but we have. And today is proof that there's plenty of backlash out there for those who want to provoke it.