Live Q&As

I think we are all in the same boat, at least as far as doing business with companies which are lead by people whose politcs we may not like, and thank you for your honesty about that.  I wonder why people, especially the mayors of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco can not be as self-aware. 

Is it because they think it's good politcs?  They are wrong, certainly in the long term, because in the name of being progressive, they are actually be regressive.  Is it because gay marriage is such an emotional issue and they leaped into the fray before carefully looking at what they were doing?  I think that may be it.

I am also struch by your mentioning where the issue of gay marriage falls on your list of important issues.  Does that mean that if it were higher on your list you would support a boycott?  If so, then you do think boycotts for unrerlated politcal views ARE appropriate, but that this issue is not significant enough to merit one.  That's a position worth rethinking, I think.

You are right to point out the Mayor's inconsistent, if not hypocritical, application of standards regarding gay rights and inclusion.  No doubt it is shaped by some measure of politcal expediency, and also by an ingrained hostility to fundamentalist Christianity, especially when it applies religion to public policy.

You are certainly right about the issue making for strange bedfellows.  The ACLU defending Chick Fil-A?  If that isn't seemingly strange bedfellows, what is? 

Of course, when you stop and think about it, what it really points out is that we get into bed with different people for different reasons.  If all parties to this controversey could just remember that, we could find more creative and productive solutions to this issue, especially as so many important values are shared by both groups which are divided on this single issue.

Well, I can't speak to your conclusion about the quality of the pizza for the same reasons that I won't comment on the quality of Chick Fil-A's chiken.  First, this is not the place for me to advertise, either positively or negatively, and second, the food is not kosher, so I don't eat it!

That said, you make a very important distinction.  The personal views of a corporate leader should be separable from their corporate policies, and in the case of Chik Fil-A, they are.  Now, if they started discriminating against gay people -- either employees or customers, this would be a totally different conversation.

I don't know what "fair" means.  If you mean they are within their legal rights to express thier views, then yes, but if you mean that taking the action those mayors have suggested is legal, then you are totally wrong. 

If your mean that it's fair for people as individuals to patronize whatever businesses they choose, then yes, we agree.  but if you think it's wise to punish a business based entirely on a single issue, especially one unrelated to how they run their business, then no, that is not wise.

And I won;t even talk about how silly it is to have a debate about values which isolates one value for political purposes, as ooposed to ignoring a whole host of values which may well deserve support even if we agree that on this issue, the company does not.  How would deal with a company that works tirelessly for gay rights, but treats it's employees like garbage, for example?

Right you are!  The thing is, it's far easier to stop eating fried chicken sandwhiches than it is to stop using petrolium based products.

I do appreciate that people feel that this is going on in their home town, so they feel it more directly and feel that they can impact it more directly as well.  Neither of those considerations should be dismissed, but neither should the danger of going after issues simply based on how convenient they are to address.

You are correct on all counts.  And you open the door to the whole issue of "tradtional family", or as Mr. Cathy calls it, "biblical family".  But what is traditional?  What is biblical?

Does Chik Fil-a support returning to one man and multiple women?  I don't think so!  But THAT was the (Hebrew) bibilical norm, and certainly still very popular practice during the time of the New Testament!!

People can and even should advocate for whatever norms they want, but we would all do well to stop tossing around words like tradtional and biblical so casually and inaccurately.

The key is your use of the word "I".  I think we all slip too easily between what we want for ourselves and those closes to us with what ought to be for all of the rest of us.  I am with you 100% about not being coerced into embracing gay marriage, sexuality outside the context of marriage, etc.  But where we disagree is that you leave no room for legal and social reality existing outside the bounds of your embrace.  That's the real issue here. 

The realm of the possible and the legal should pretty much always be at least a little wider than our onw personal embrace, especially if we are more on the conservative side.  That is what distinguishing legitimate conservtisim from illegitimate coercivismm.

And btw, if your real concern is short term pleasure taking over from long-term relationship -- a concern I share -- you might want to consider advocating FOR gay marriage.  Who else is fighting so hard for the right to make long-term committments in our era or short term thinking?

Were the case you mentioned found to have merit, you might be onto something, but it was not -- not, at least, as far as my research shows.  As to the use of private wealth whcih was legally gained, my guess is that were you to apply that test to any company, you would likely find a reason to stop patronizing them.

At some point, we all need to appreciate the difference between how people treat others, especially in public and as it relates to their public relationships, and how people live their private lives, including their politics.  Without that, we simply wind up with competing camps who all share the view that it's not worth dealing with anyone who isn't exactly jsut like them, and that's a pretty ugly world in which to live.

Yup.  Which is why, in so many ways, this is about people being able to pick an issue with low cost to themselves and high reward on the moral correctness scale.

My advice?  When those to scales get too divergent, it probably means one has gone from appropriate social and economic activism to self-congratulatory brow beating of others.

A VERY fair and important disticntion, even if we don't agree about the propriety of boycott.  That's a nice way of my saying that I think these mayors are nuts!

Saying to others that they are un-Chicago?  What in the world was R.E. thinking?  The fact that one starts from what is typically thought of as a progressive position does not justify what is nothing less that McCarthy'ist laguage and policy.

We agree about both their track record and about the harm done by those organizations, at least broadly so, because I think that some of them also do some good.  But how do you decide that that issue and that issue alone, is how you will spend your money?  And what about all the stock holders of all those public corporations who are enriched by corporate success and give to those same places? 

Applying your standard, there is no end to the thing and no way to have economy unless it is peopled exclusively both those who share your views.  Ironically, this is where Cathy and his most strident opponents are most alike -- each want everybody to be just like them and are prepared to go to great lenghts to enforce that desired reality.  Sad, really.

I am sure there are those who would love nothing more, just as their are conservative religous groups that seek to punsih all those business which support it.  In each case small-minded, single-issue moralizers have taken over from those who seek to carefully balance individual rights, social concerns, and the free exchange of both ideas and money as the keys to a healthy society.

Again, were the comapany violating the law, or unfairly discriminating against people whose personal lives they didn't approve of, then this would all have to be revisited,  You do appreciate that, right?

Thanks for being honest about your practiced inconsistency, especially as it's true for most of us, I suspect.  And you are right that there is some difference, even given that I believe we need to separate between what comapnay exec.s believe and how they run their business's, when those exec.s publically trumpet their poltical views.  I still think that punishing them for doing so sets a dangerous and repressinve precedent, but I take your point.

Also, as I will keep pointing out, there is a VAST difference between what private individuals do and what elected officials do and advocte for.  That mayors have politicized this issue as they have, that they have issued warning to the comapany to stay away from thier twon, etc. is truly reprehensible.

This is a good observation on which to end because it highlights a strenght in both camps regarding this issue.

You are certainly correct about the greatness of this country, the freedoms it affords (if not always fully equally), and the inconsistency of those advocating for a boycott of Chick Fil-A.  But is it also important that we not settle for a position which says that as we are all fine, as long as we are better than those countries where people are killed based upon the person with whom they share a bed.

I am, in many ways at least, a proud American exceptionalist.  but along with the pride that generates, come obligations, including the obligation to measure our success against our greatest aspirations, not just against the trak records of other nations in which most of us would never want to live.