{"id":5570,"date":"2011-02-18T13:56:20","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T21:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=5570"},"modified":"2011-02-18T14:03:05","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T22:03:05","slug":"playing-chicken-with-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/playing-chicken-with-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing Chicken with Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chick-fil-A<\/a> by Chuck Colson –<\/p>\n

Is giving away chicken sandwiches an act of homophobic bigotry? According to certain homosexual groups and websites, it is: when you give away sandwiches to people attending a conference on marriage. You heard that right. Gay-rights groups are slandering and boycotting the well-known national fast-food chain Chick-fil-A\u2014you know, the one that says we should \u201ceat more chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because one of its restaurants decided to donate some sandwiches to a February marriage conference sponsored by the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which opposes so-called gay \u201cmarriage.\u201d <\/p>\n

Chick-fil-A is among only a handful of large American companies with conservative religion built into its corporate ethos<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

That\u2019s it. There was absolutely no attempt to exclude anyone or to engage in gay-bashing. Responding to the boycott and the attacks, Chick-fil-A, which according to the The New York Times<\/em> is \u201camong only a handful of large American companies with conservative religion built into its corporate ethos,\u201d says that it serves and values all people and treats \u201ceveryone with honor, dignity and respect.\u201d I know that\u2019s the case. <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not good enough, say the critics, who have redoubled their efforts to pillory an American success story. The Times reports that a headline in one college newspaper ran, \u201cIf you\u2019re eating Chick-fil-A, you\u2019re eating anti-gay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this an example of the more respectful civil discourse we are all supposed to adopt? Unfortunately, homosexual activists are attempting to punish someone who holds an opinion different than their own. This kind of attack against a company whose officer\u2019s are prominent Christians undermines the freedoms we all enjoy.<\/p>\n

Yet two can play at this ugly game. Just for example, the Human Rights Campaign, which works for marriage rights for homosexuals, bisexuals, and the \u201ctransgendered community,\u201d lists a large number of corporate sponsors, many of which are household names. Here are a few: Starbucks, Microsoft, Nike, Google, Dell, American Airlines, and a whole lot more. Imagine what would happen if Christians, who have at least ten times the numbers of the homosexual community, were to start boycotting them?<\/p>\n

We must protect free discourse for all\u2014even Christians!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Is it the American way to muzzle every group that supports something with which we disagree? That\u2019s what happened, incidentally, with our Manhattan Declaration, which stands for traditional marriage. Gay-rights activists apparently convinced Apple to remove our app from its iTunes store.<\/p>\n

I, for one, support the expansion of freedom, not its suppression. We must protect free discourse for all\u2014even Christians! As the historian Henry Steele Commager said, \u201cCensorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while we Christians are free to exercise discretion as to where we spend the money God has entrusted to us, I believe we should use the blunt instrument of the boycott only in the rarest of cases. While I heartily disagree with Apple over its censoring of the Manhattan Declaration App, I haven\u2019t urged anyone to throw away their iPhones, and I\u2019ll continue to do all I can to convince Apple to reverse itself. Whenever possible, let\u2019s win the difficult debates we face with facts and with love, not with coercion.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a modest suggestion for Christians to exercise our own freedom: Go out and buy a Chick-fil-A sandwich\u2014or two\u2014or three!<\/p>\n

HT: Break Point<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chuck Colson – Is giving away chicken sandwiches an act of homophobic bigotry? According to certain homosexual groups and websites, it is: when you give away sandwiches to people attending a conference on marriage. You heard that right. Gay-rights groups are slandering and boycotting the well-known national fast-food chain Chick-fil-A\u2014you know, the one that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[103,67,79,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-bashing","category-conservatives","category-freedom","category-homosexual-indoctrination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}