-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
While “making a purchase is not an endorsement of the philosophy of the business,” there may be other ethical concerns at play. When that business donates $2 million dollars to groups that are hell-bent on denying civil rights to a particular group, an individual’s purchase contributes (albeit by a minuscule amount) to a cause s/he may find morally offensive.
The group, One Million Moms, responded to the rainbow Oreo, created in support of Gay Pride month, called for a boycott of Kraft. Kraft, like Chick-fil-A, entered into advocacy and that advocacy becomes a legitimate factor in the purchasing decision.
The moral dilemma occurs when a person is confronted with the decision to purchase a product from a company that uses its profits for an advocacy that the person finds morally unacceptable. Those who find same-sex marriage morally unacceptable face the dilemma when purchasing Kraft products. Those who see same-sex marriage as a civil liberties issue fact the same dilemma when purchasing from Chick-fil-A.
When a person purchases products from a company with an advocacy agenda, that person is helping to support, even in a minor way, that agenda. A minuscule contribution is still a contribution.
Throughout our history, civil liberties have been denied to various groups of individuals for various reasons. I have heard no reasonable justification for the denial of civil liberties based on sexual orientation. Until Chick-fil-A provides a reasonable justification for their denial of civil liberties, I find their actions morally reprehensible. As much as I like those chicken sandwiches, something else will have to alleviate my hunger and my conscience.
H/T: Michael LaBossiere, HuffPo.
Nal:
“If you knew he was donating his earnings to a group advocating the imposition of Sharia law in the United States, would you still patronize his store?”
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Probably would still patronize him since I assume he does that already by donating to his mosque. Isn’t the point of all judeo-christian religions to impose their beliefs on others?
nick spinelli:
Obama is the standard of morality of the free world? You don’t read this blog much, do you?
mahtso:
Does the state have a reasonable justification to prevent two people in love from marrying?
mespo727272:
If you knew he was donating his earnings to a group advocating the imposition of Sharia law in the United States, would you still patronize his store?
Tricksy:
Is the Slippery Slope fallacy the best response you have?
nick, The majority of Americans now support gay marriage including the president. Romney does not.. A lot has changed since 2008.
Mr. Cathy’s views on gay marriage comport w/ our presidents during the 2008 campaign and up until just recently. It is apparent you hold the owner of a chicken shop to a higher standard than the leader of the free world. It certainly couldn’t be just your run of the mill, hypocritical, double standard.
Tricksy:
We cannot “set parameters” on consenting adults on who they love and wish to affiliate with — especially on religious grounds. We call that separation of church and state and avoiding the government’s establishment of one religion for us a all. I agree that government should be out of the marriage business but I don’t want uncompromising religions taking over the store.
Denying civil rights…so I guess we cannot set parameters. Can one then ‘marry’ a car, a pet? Perhaps we might allow religion to define marriage and government to define civil unions.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/03/last-supper-at-chick-fil-a/
“Still, somehow it’s different with Chick-fil-A. Perhaps it’s because the brand is now so clearly about something more than chicken that to eat at the chain today is to arguably take a de facto stance against gay marriage. That leaves folks (like journalists and maybe many readers of this column) who want to avoid taking public stances on political issues in a quandary. Who wants to be force-fed politics–literally?” Charles Passy, WSJ
I am wondering how far we go with this notion of principled economic punishment via boycott. I have friend, Mohammad, who runs the convenience store I frequent. He is a practicing Muslim. He attends services regularly and I must assume accepts many if not all of the teachings of the Qu’ran. In furthering my opposition to the teachings of the faith to which he obviously subscribes, must I — and others of like mind — boycott his store?
Cruz is a Southern Baptist, also.
If the advice from this blogpost was followed with even a modicum of earnestness, I imagine one would be a neurotic mess in no time at all.
First, let us take the example of Chickfila’s donations to WinShape. WinShape does a lot of inescapably good work. It’s not all good, but the majority of the money WinShape spends is for causes everyone ought to support. It gets children in good foster homes, gets them lower and higher education ect ect. There’s an excellent case to be made, since WinShape foundation uses so much money for causes that have nothing to do with the pro-gay/anti-gay nonsense, that the vast majority of the time one goes to a Chickfila your money ends up sending a kiddo through college. But, according to this article, that admittedly small chance that your money may be used by WinShape (or donated by WinShape to a third, more ‘anti-gay’ party) should provide an ethical reason to avoid Chickfila.
Imagine if any other company you purchased was held up to such standards? You want to buy a Microsoft computer, from BestBuy, using Intel chips and an Nvidia graphics card? Well, go out and check all their donations and all the donations of the people they donated to. If there’s even one dollar (because, as the blogpost states in no uncertain terms, “a miniscule contribution is still a contribution”) that has gone to an organization deemed ‘anti-gay’ (which, of course, is itself an ambigious and laughably imprecise term especially if its being used in the process of making an ethical choice) then you are ethically compelled not to buy that computer.
Imagine if you tried accomplishing that when you go to the grocery store? “Hm, Ralphs/Albertsons/Whomever donated to them, who donated to them. They have been called anti-gay by these groups, though not by this group… Hm.” Either you can become a shut-in neurotic, and take this post seriously. Or you can laugh it off as bemusing as it is amusing. I suppose there’s also the chance you can be a happy hypocrite, holding your fastfood resturants to a higher standard than you do the President…
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/01/4146481/a-multitude-of-customers-show.html There were traffic jams in Tarrant County. Vote for Cruz and eat at Chik Fil A was the deal last week. Cruz even served it at his victory party
I think their sales are way up at the 34 locations in DFW.
Loving vs Virginia….. Bowser vs Hardwick…… Comes to mind…..
I live part of the year in the Phoenix area and part in San Diego. I checked for Chic-fil-A locations in both areas. San Diego has three. There are 12 in the Phoenix area. Just sayin’.
Q: do you have a civil liberty to marry two husbands?
Mr. Cathy’s comments viewed simply in a vacuum could be interpreted as the musings (though recorded) of an industry leader within a religiously conservative, fundamentalist mind set. There are many like him. However, with his large donations to what the SPLC has deemed a hate group, the Family Research Council make this an entirely different issue. I will boycott Chic-Fil-A as well. Mr. Cathy’s entirely entitled to his opinions but his advocacy entwined within his family business ownership which leads to continued bigotry and retardation of Civil liberties make this development a deal-breaker on all sides for him and for me.
Perhaps the way to handle this would be for these companies to not use their company profits to support any cause, one way or another, but just distribute the profits to shareholders as dividends and let the shareholders decide how they want to spend their money.
2 things – there is a difference between a Chick-filler spending millions to deny civil rights and a General Mills saying they won’t discriminate and are not in favor of discrimination. The difference is the money part.
The second thing is the double game being played by many companies. I’ll use Target as an example. Target Corp supports gay rights and even donates to HRC. Target CEO (and several other big shots) give huge donations to the anti-civil rights organizations and politicians. These guys are smart enough to see that their personal politics are not winners for their companies. When you are buying products the political causes you are funding is probably not a clear picture.