Why I'm Still Eating Oreos and Chick-Fil-A

A few weeks back, Oreo came out with a graphic of an Oreowith rainbow colored layers, representing that they supported gay marriage.Recently, Chick-Fil-A owner Dan Cathy has been in hot water for publiclyaddressing that his company supports the “biblical marriage unit” i.e. man andwoman. So as expected, many leftists began boycotting Oreo and many rightwingers vowed to never eat Chick-Fil-A again. Where do I stand? I’m off in thecorner, boycotting the boycots, and eating all the Oreos and Chicken sandwiches.

Believer or non-believer, most of you reading this blog livein the United States.

While the U.S.has it’s problems, there is a beauty in the amount of freedom that we have beenblessed with. We are free to speak our mind, to hold beliefs, or to not believein anything if we so choose. Freedom is a fantastic benefit of being anAmerican. What baffles me and irritates me to the core is that we can claim tobe a country that fights for our freedom of speech, freedom to hold certainvalues, and freedom to believe whatever we want, yet we often will attackwhoever doesn’t believe the way in which we want them to.

When Oreo came out with their rainbow graphic, some in theChristian world decided that it was not o.k. for this company to voice theirbeliefs, resulting in a lot of hateful statements and the boycotting ofOreo/Nabisco. I, however, did not see any problem with this statement. Theywere standing for what they believed and just stating what they value. They didnot come out and say that they were against “straight marriage” or that theywould no longer hire straight people at their company. Nor did they say thatthey would no longer be making Oreos for straight people (which would have beendevastating as Oreos are DELICIOUS).

When Dan Cathy stated this week that his company supportsthe “biblical representation of marriage,” the internet blew up with talk ofboycotts and the disgust of Cathy’s “hate and discrimination.” I made sure toread all of Dan Cathy’s interview and am not sure where he is beingdiscriminatory or hateful. His company, like Oreo/Nabisco, holds a value to betrue for them. At no time did they state that they would not serve, hire, oraccept homosexual people in their restaurants. In fact, Chick-Fil-A states, “The Chick-Fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treatevery person with honor, dignity, and respect—regardless of their belief, race,creed, sexual orientation or gender.” That sounds like a tradition anyone couldbe a part of and one that I personally can support. A policy of loving everyoneand treating them with the respect and dignity that everyone, Christian or not,deserves.

So we can condemn Oreo for making a bold statement and wecould condemn Dan Cathy for holding a value that is not popular. Or we can beblessed to live in a country where we can embrace our differences, be free tobelieve what we want, and still love the other side in the process. If lovingyour neighbor even though they don’t agree with you is not something you can geton board with, well, more Oreos and Chick-Fil-A for me.

If you are interested in more info on Oreo of Chick-Fil-A join the conversation on Facebook:

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