Stuff Christian Culture Likes’ Stephanie Drury argued, “You’d never see this many Christians lined up to help at a homeless shelter or food bank. And that’s something Jesus actually said to do.” And then it was added to a meme and went viral. It was a good question – and perhaps fair, though limited. In my experience, Christians tend to line up to do some work of charity – on occasion. Still, every Thanksgiving is more often than once, I guess. That doesn’t mean that the entire enterprise is not above questioning. But we’ll get to that shortly.
The other night, my friend and fellow progressive Christian blogger Marching On and On turned those “God” quotes on their ear a bit. I reproduced on my Facebook page as a status update.
Dear Christian Right, while you were showing America how much you "love" me by stuffing your fat faces with chicken-fried-hate, half the world was dying of starvation.
- Jesus
There were other imaginary comments (‘cuz you know Jesus didn’t really say that, right?). Others that targeted NASA and self-reflection.
”Dear Science, while you spent $2.5 Billion on sending a camera to Mars, we were dying of starvation.
- Half the World
"Dear Heath, while you are using your fat fingers to type out smart-Alec 'hard stances' on your extravagant smart phone, half the world is dying of starvation.
– Jesus
If you’re like me, you’re tired of the CfA kerfuffle. But I think there are a lot of applicable points to make from the controversy – from this one-sided culture war*
I’ve got three critical points I’ll raise here, though. Well, two for today; the final point is gonna be stretched out for a moment or two later.
First, oftentimes conservative Christians and other members of the Religious Right -wait for it - are among the first responders in times of crises. They also tend to be generous in terms of giving. We can and probably should ask what they’re giving to, whether it’s effective or not, for what purpose, etc. But I think liberals and lefties tend to downplay this fact. We shouldn’t, because it needs to be acknowledged and taken into account for what it is. In a sense, it should also be commended; in other senses, not so much. But this fact is hardly to be condemned or mocked. They may not line around the block every single day to feed the poor, but they do line up to, for instance, serve soup kitchens or help stock the food pantry or help build houses. In my own experience at least, they do this often.
But that brings us to the second point: Often, Christians – whether conservative or liberal – tend to do things for the poor, rather than with. A soup kitchen is valuable for satiating the physically hungry on that day - at that moment. And serving at a soup kitchen also serves to satiate consciences of the spiritually hungry - those who are performing the service feel better about ourselves for a moment. Those of us who realize that there is something drastically wrong with the world, that somebody should do something about that, we want to and desire to find a release for that tension. We eat - they don't. There's a widening and friction-filled tension there and doing an act of service for those we deem the less fortunate helps to alleviate that tension.
This is an approach that effectively says that the better-off are actually better than those they serve.Can the homeless not share in the giving as well? Or are they not good enough?
Rather this: Can we all be welcome and eat at the same table, everybody bringing and giving and sharing and taking and creating and taking pleasure at what we have brought together? Can we accept the gifts of the homeless and the queer and the middle class and the single mother?
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*I say it’s a one-sided Cultural War because when one party is being attacked by another, that’s what it is – a one-sided war. Conservative Evangelicals and their Religious Right co-horts tend to buy into the concept of culture wars. The way it is framed, it looks like a two sided issue and that “both sides” (whatever that means) are equally invested in that.
I've never eaten at Chick-fil-A. I'm not a Southerner, so I don't have that regional affiliation that makes others love Carl, Jr's or Waffle House or Taco Mayo or whatever. I'm from Chicago. We do the far more dangerous deep dish pizza and thousands of versions of encased leftover meats. When/if I ever move, that's what I'll miss. I haven't tried Chick-fil-A, so I don't know what I'm missing. And CfA will not really miss me, either. But that's not what this is about. This isn't about making a statement, because, at least individually, I don't have much to make a statement with.
But, on International Eat Moar Chikin Day, tempers are flaring up. There is real injustice concerning the defense of marriage being solely between a male and a female partner. But maybe the bigger injustice is the inability to empathize and share in the sufferings of others that many, many Christians are having right now. As a result, I often feel victimized myself when some of my Christian friends ask, "What's the big deal? He's just expressing an opinion..."
Well, for starters, the opinion itself is hurtful. It's kind of mean and exclusivist to say that a family is only defined how you define it. And that way is one man, one (usually subservient) woman, and a gaggle of babies. Those of us who do not fit into that stereotype (with extended family, with add-ons, with divorce, with infertility, with differing sexual preferences, different socio-cultural values, with children born out-of-wedlock, etc,) do not need for people to define for us what is and is not a "proper" family - or, for that matter, a "biblical" family.
All these hens. Where are their husbands?
Because, as we're probably aware by now, families in the bible were never, ever exclusively one model or another. And the typical nuclear family wasn't even an option (until privilege and luxury allowed young families to be independent of others - but even that is misleading).
But that's not what this is about. The majority of Evangelicals tend to believe that the fracas over CfA is about a belief or an expression of that belief, but it's about practice. CfA president Cathy and his supporters contend that they give sandwiches to anyone who comes in the door, regardless of their sexual affiliation or "lifestyle choice."
I guess they want a cookie for this? This kind of stance is utterly dismissive as well. One, it's supposed to be that way. We live in a country with civil rights laws. It's the law. They're supposed to welcome every paying customer into their business. So what? Do we celebrate every time a Waffle House decides to let an African American buy pancakes now? What year is this?
The same people also counter that CfA also doesn't discriminate on hiring employees. Well, franchises may not discriminate so much locally (let's thank the CRA and the Equal Employment Opportunity Standards for that), but the company does discriminate in hiring and promotion. And fairly openly.
Cathy... wants married workers, believing they are more industrious and productive. One in three company operators have attended Christian-based relationship-building retreats through WinShape at Berry College in Mount Berry, Ga. The programs include classes on conflict resolution and communication. Family members of prospective operators--children, even--are frequently interviewed so Cathy and his family can learn more about job candidates and their relationships at home. "If a man can't manage his own life, he can't manage a business," says Cathy, who says he would probably fire an employee or terminate an operator who "has been sinful or done something harmful to their family members."
The parent company asks people who apply for an operator license to disclose marital status, number of dependents and involvement in "community, civic, social, church and/or professional organizations."
But Danielle Alderson, 30, a Baltimore operator, says some fellow franchisees find that Chick-fil-A butts into its workers' personal lives a bit much. She says she can't hire a good manager who, say, moonlights at a strip club because it would irk the company. "We are watched very closely by Chick-fil-A." (Forbes)
WinShape, btw, is CfA's "pro-family" charitable branch. Which we'll get into shortly.
But not only does CfA discriminate just by their definitions of family values or what-have-you, but also for more explicitly religious reasons:
Chick-fil-A, the corporate parent, has been sued at least 12 times since 1988 on charges of employment discrimination, according to records in U.S. District Courts. Aziz Latif, a former Chick-fil-A restaurant manager in Houston, sued the company in 2002 after Latif, a Muslim, says he was fired a day after he didn't participate in a group prayer to Jesus Christ at a company training program in 2000. (Forbes)
This is in addition to the million-plus they give to anti-gay groups (explicit hate group and Kill-the-Gays sponsor Family Research Council, Alliance Defense Fund, and Georgia Family Council, for example) or funds set up specifically to go towards anti-gay groups such as the FRC, American Family Association or Focus on the Family, or the millions they invest in groups that are explicitly limited to straights only and condemning of "homosexual behavior" (Campus Crusade for Christ and Fellowship of Christian Athletes, both of whom try to and have a history of "fixing" and post-gay "recovery") through WinShape. (Equality Matters)
And then there's the former employee who is suing CfA on the grounds that she was fired in order to be a stay-at-home mother. (via)
Each of these, on their own, probably wouldn't be enough to earn nation-wide scorn. But put them together and we have a pattern deeper than just "expressing a different opinion." It's a systemic pattern of discrimination for a certain way of being a "family." Privileging male-dominated and bread-winning, multiple-children-having, nuclear, straight families far above and over others.
That is an explicit problem. A fundamental problem that I've noticed with Evangelical Christians is that we tend to go along with the rest of society - but generally a couple decades after society has. Rather than being on the vanguard of equity, we hold the line until society moves it and past when society moves it. So we are strong for capitalism long past its usefulness to society. We are struggling with "Earth Care". We mock vegetarians. And we say we love homosexuals, but when we're not ignoring them or talking down to them, we're fighting their recognition every step of the way. (Also, we completely ignore - at best? - transgendered people. )
Now, is a boycott the best way to protest or change policy? I really DK. Remember when Disney was being actively boycotted by these same "Family" groups in the eighties and nineties for being pro-gay? For, actually, extending many of the same benefits to the partners of homosexuals that these "Family" groups still don't want extended to non-straight families? Will it change perspectives? I know a lot of information is being passed through right now, and I hope seeds are being planted. But boycotts and counter-boycotts, are they effective? I guess it depends. Aims? Objectives? Procedures?
I'd be more interested in, say, dialog. Particularly, dialog where Evangelicals are willing to just. shut. up. and listen and try to understand why LGBTQI persons are upset instead of Evangelicals telling LGBTQI persons that they shouldn't be so upset (Can you tell I've been triggered here myself?).
Maybe we can learn a lot from each other. I'd like to know why, for example, visitation rights are denied to same-sex couples. And I'd like to know why that's okay for some, or if that's really ok with Evangelical Christians. Are they aware that when they get the state to pass constitutions against homosexual marriages, this is what they're doing? This and refusing to acknowledge the same rights that heterosexual couples have. According to the Human Rights Watch, "1,138 benefits, rights and protections[are] provided on the basis of marital status in Federal law," which puts homosexual couples in a precarious position in doing taxes, raising children, sharing benefits, family leave, etc.
Additionally, this isn't just limited to financial and visitation rights. It's about who qualifies and doesn't qualify to have basic dignity and participation in society as a full human being with full rights. Remember, just a few years ago, interracial marriages were outlawed and considered unbiblical by many of those fighting against full marriage equality.
But, let's expand this a bit more, shall we? For it's not just same-sex couples that are denied basic human equalities, rights, privileges. It's also, in some cases, extended family members. And maybe that's an issue that has to do with other types of privilege. Some instances have to do with ageism. For example, older best friends are closer than recognized family sometimes and sometimes would like to enter into agreements to watch each other, but are denied the privilege by unconcerned family members. The fact that distant, unconnected blood relatives can have more impact than life partners is kind of scary, really.
But, at least we can be comforted that KFC and Oreo love the gays. Call it consumerist appeal, but at least they're recognized as people, even if just consuming people...
Dan Savage (the NorthWest-based Sex Columnist known for being particularly crass in a field of crass-ness) had a particularly strong column last week on Christians' relationships with anti-gay bullying. Some of his points for those of us who need to listen the most may have been missed in his offensive efforts of calling the writer out, but they are poignant and for those of us who can stomach such insults, they need to be listened to. Slightly edited version is at the end of this blog.
However, I want to take some time to re-envision what this may mean for us Christians.
Imagine that your children are in school in a land where Christians are openly mocked and persecuted. Not the persecution-lite that some radio pundits and mass-mail fliers try to convince us is increasing in this country. (They were saying the same thing when I was a child, about basically the same situations. But I was a Christian then just as now and I can honestly say, I was never truly persecuted. However, as a teacher, I did see real, malignant persecution for sexually ambiguous young men. It broke my heart). Occasionally being teased for being a virgin in the locker room is hardly the same as the verbal, emotional, physical, sexual onslaught that, say, homosexual children receive on a daily, hourly basis. Let's put aside the concerns that homosexuality is learned or biological, because as Christians, we choose. So we know that choice shouldn't be a justification for persecution.
Now, imagine living in an area where Christians are outcasts, blamed for all sorts of things that we can't possibly be responsible for: polluting the minds of young children, if not doing worse; promoting a secret, clandestine agenda;looking to convert innocents and drag them from their family and traditions. In fact, it seems entirely plausible to me that WE are actually doing the things we are accusing the LGBT community as a whole of doing, even as they're mostly just trying to get a hold on the confusion-matrix that is school, life, hormones, family...
And your children go to school. And they're bumped into lockers for being at the least moderately associated with Christianity. They're called all sorts of names, the sorts of names that I just promised a friend I'd try not to repeat. Constant barrage, constant butt of highly embarrassing jokes. Being roughed up in the halls regularly; being sexually assaulted constantly. Derision. Mockery.
And you're talking with your next door neighbors about these problems. And they're basically decent folks. Keep to themselves, keep a clean manor, music is down low; they're not shout-y people like some of the other guys. But you know that their kids are roughing up your kids. Even leaders amongst the anti-Christian bullies.
And they respond, "Now, you guys can live over there and pray your little prayers to your Magical Sky Fairy in peace, and we can do something worthwhile and valuable in peace and we should be all okay. It's really too bad that's happening to your children. But we don't tell our kids to bully your kids. That wouldn't be very nice or neighborly. It's against our moral code to do so.
"I'm actually a bit offended," they continue, adding injury to insult by their mock pain, "that you'd suggest that we would possibly persuade our children to aggravate your children. Maybe if you people didn't try to be all Christian, what with your going to church and stuff, and wanting to be married and hang out at the ice cream shop like normal people... Maybe they wouldn't be targeted. But that's not our fault."
That's the same sort of semi-human/back-handed disregard that we're feeding in our Christian community about Gay/Lesbian/Bi-sexual/Transgendered people. How do our children internalize such talk? Seriously??
Q: I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened by and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.
If your message is that we shouldn't judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man, and I know for a fact that's true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint.
To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people....
—L.R.
A: I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.
No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: fuck your feelings.
A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying...
Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.
And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.
Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.
... The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians" and the lies about us vomited out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to mom and dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.
Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?
Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh and others—day in, day out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call mom and dad.
