One of These is Not Like the Other

Greetings from vacation.

I made the mistake of looking at the internet between rounds of golf and museum visits. It turns out some anti-woke rightwingers want to boycott Chick-fil-a because the company has a DEI office, and people are recirculating a three-year-old video of Dan Cathy, the former CEO, shining musician LaCrae’s shoes after the George Floyd riots.

Y’all, we must exercise some discernment and discretion to be taken seriously. Asking moms to give up Target and Chick-fil-a will get us ignored from coast to coast. This is the bridge too far.

First, I do not defend Chick-fil-a and a DEI office. I think it has no need. But I would note that Chick-fil-a does not focus on the rainbow of DEI. Rather, Chick-fil-a focuses on race, ethnicity, women, and veterans. You’re more likely to find Pride materials for the Trump campaign than on Chick-fil-a’s website.

Instead, on Chick-fil-a’s website, just before the DEI section, you’ll find their corporate mission statement, which reads:

Again, I think it is silly for Chick-fil-a to go down the DEI rabbit hole. Still, it has used that not to celebrate the trans agenda or sell PRIDE paraphernalia but to promote black, Hispanic, female, and veteran-owned Chick-fil-a franchises. Yes, the company includes veterans as part of its DEI agenda.

Likewise, Dan Cathy’s video is cringe. It is also three years old, and Dan Cathy treats shoe shining as a modern equivalent to Jesus washing feet. This was not a one-time thing. Cathy has long done it as part of his idea of being a servant leader. He’s done it without overtones related to George Floyd. Yeah, the video is cringe, but have you noticed it reflected at the corporate level? Is Chick-fil-a in your face about this stuff like Target or Bud Light?

No, you don’t need to give the company a pass, but the chicken sandwiches are not being outsourced to a company that promotes Satanism as Target did with pride clothing. Chick-fil-a is not promoting trans activists as Bud Light did.

If we cannot discern and instead take a “pox on all their houses” approach, we will turn off many people.

Conservatives are not boycotting Target and Bud Light. They have led on those issues, but Americans are doing the boycotting. If conservatives start adding in companies like Chick-fil-a, we are going to start having people tune us out. No one walks into Chick-fil-a and gets confronted with pride merchandise manufactured by Satan-sympathetic companies. Chick-fil-a marketing executives do not do interviews belittling their consumers as Bud Light did.

Be careful, discern, and use discretion or Americans will turn on the right over these issues. Asking moms to give up Target and Chick-fil-a is tone-deaf and one is not like the other.