Great piece over at Huffington Post in which LGBT employees of Chick-Fil-A are interviewed about what it's like working there right now. They're getting it from both sides: the icky customers who thank them for hating gays, and the entitled jerk protesters who assume the same. And, bonus: some of the fast food chain's gay employees report "a lot of general homophobia" in their work environments.

  • http://madeofhells.tumblr.com/ Triangle Dimes

    There’s some really misguided executives in an office somewhere high-fiveing each other saying “the brand just went viral!”How did this become a thing? A fried chicken joint becoming a lightning rod for the debate on civil rights for homosexuals? All of us, right now, are living in a satire. 

    • Sagodjur

       Didn’t you see Network? We’ve been living in a satire for some time now. Some people are just seeing how few clothes the Emperor has been wearing…

      • http://madeofhells.tumblr.com/ Triangle Dimes

         I did see Network. Great film. It’s just that it seems to have reached cartoonish levels now. The bipartisan gulf is widening and people long ago realized that sensationalism is the only way to get people interested in politics so next year it will be the right for lesbians to play basketball argued with who has the rights to the master tapes of Seinfeld.

    • techbuzz

      It kind of seems fitting that an obese nation would hinge its civil rights debate on fried chicken.

  • jaduncan

    Are we sure they really benefit from fear of the cock?

  • teapot

    I hope the gay employees are flopping their dicks in basically every food stuff when no one is watching. Safer option: save the splooge at home and add to the special sauce later.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

      • Little John

        You’ve said a mouthful, Brother!

      • mostlydigital

        One man’s fish is another man’s poisson.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000467193009 Glenn Gass

    I support Chik-fil-a because they support our schools.  One persons opinion does not change that they have supported our school for years. 

    • Kevin Cotton

      I support Chik-fil-a’s choice to ‘support our schools.’ I do not support their choice to be bigoted. I think that I WILL ‘support our schools’ and leave the bigots out of the equation.

    • Geoduck

       It isn’t “one person’s opinion”. They are actively contributing money to homophobic organizations.

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      Won’t somebody think of the children!

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Won’t somebody think of the children!

        You do know that ‘chicken’ is a slang term for youthful sexual partners?

        • Sparrow

          Won’t someone think of the chicken-hawks!?

      • Sparrow

        Won’t someone think of the chickens!?

      • Navin_Johnson

        Coincidentally, some of the groups that they donate to devote much of their time to spreading lies and false propaganda that paints gays as out of control pedophiles preying on children, propaganda that’s almost certainly ginning up strong feelings of hate towards gays, which of course often lead to violence, suicide etc… These of course are not “opinions”, they are lies and propaganda, and in a number of countries they are outlawed as inciting hatred.

        Switch out “homosexuals” below with ‘blacks’, ‘latinos’, ‘asians. etc.. Why is this tolerated?

        “One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.”

        http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/family-research-council

        • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

          Considering that they’re in the business of peddling fried chicken, this is all very unusual if you ask me.

          What’s the Colonels position on homosexuals I wonder?

    • wysinwyg

       I support Mussolini because he got the trains running on schedule.

    • http://www.facebook.com/efrodahl Elliott Frodahl

      Yes, and when they decide to use their funding to influence what those schools teach, will it be OK?

  • Chentzilla

    General Homophobia? Is that a new character of Sheep in the Big City?

  • gabichi23

    Here we go again with the religious lunatics that think god hates homos, he she or it lol wouldnt be so stupid as to create something and then later on hate it LOL!
    Of course the whole concept of a god is a ridiculous one :)
    Only arrogant people think god Exists :p

    • darkjayson

      Na god exists it us who are just sims in his giant supercomputer, why else would we find our self’s sometimes locked in our houses with broken toilets and the place on fire?

      • gabichi23

        You have sources of information that are not available to the rest of us

  • http://twitter.com/james4765 Jim Nelson

    Ah, the South. Where living in the closet seems like such a good idea, sometimes, because of exactly the kind of bigoted horseshit that was in that article.

    It’s just depressing, seeing the sheer amount of petty, small-minded hatefulness that people who are NOT AFFECTED IN ANY WAY by other people’s marriage spew. It’s not exactly the civil rights movement (the cops are neutral, for instance, instead of using dogs and fire hoses) but the verbal viciousness from the defenders of the status quo is the same.

    One of the reasons I don’t live in the suburbs, I think.

    And this whole debacle has made me feel less safe, for some reason. And less welcome in my own country.

    • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

      “And this whole debacle has made me feel less safe, for some reason. And less welcome in my own country.”

      Unfortunately, I suspect that the response on the part of those responsible would be ‘Mission Accomplished!’

  • mypalmike

    Homophobia is pretty rampant in the work environments of most low-paying retail jobs, and not just in the South.

    • Navin_Johnson

       I’d say it’s on display in all classes of society.

  • Little John

    Speaking of homophobia:

    It sure sucks that we so avidly use “sucks” to describe something awful or unsatisfying. I wish it weren’t too late to revert that nasty little linguistic development.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      I think that it may come from ‘sucking eggs’ or ‘sucking up’ rather than from ‘sucking cock’.

      • Little John

        I’d be amazed. I believe today’s “it sure sucks that…” follows from usages like “Cleveland sucks” and “algebra sucks”, ultimately from “you suck”, a middle-school variant of “you f****t” (and arguably slightly cleaner than “you suck cock”, “you suck balls”, “you suck ass”, etc.

        And your “sucking eggs” suggestion doesn’t explain the equivalent expression “that really blows” (“the cafeteria blows”, “Ford blows”, “Cleveland really blows”).

        There’s also “that bites”, which I think comes from the same pile of homophobic insults, although it at least makes some sense as something you (probably) wouldn’t want to experience.

        • Little John

          Sorry about requiring the comment-approval and asteriskification steps by using the f-word above. I’d forgotten it was against the moderation policy.

          • Antinous / Moderator

            The filter snags it automatically.

  • Navin_Johnson

    They’re getting it from both sides: the icky customers who thank them for hating gays, and the entitled jerk protesters who assume the same.

    Somebody else mentioned in the other Chik-Fil-A piece on Boing Boing about the kissing day that we should lay off the employees, and I couldn’t agree more.  They’re just trying to get by any way they can, and on low wages in a horrible job market.  I’ll also remember this the next time there’s a Boing Boing article that blanketly insults and vilifies all TSA workers.

    • Little John

      If we lay them off, how can they get by, especially “in a horrible job market”?

    • Antinous / Moderator

      I’ll also remember this the next time there’s a Boing Boing article that blanketly insults and vilifies all TSA workers.

      I wondered how long it would take for you to get around to your obsessive defense of TSA workers. But you’ve made a false equivalency; Chik-Fil-A workers are cooking and selling food, not fisting old ladies in public.

      • Navin_Johnson

        I was spot on.  In that situation the bosses get off scot free, in this one it’s the reverse, and both feature examples of entitlement. My defense of working people only seems “obsessive” because it’s such a regular (obsessive) topic here, and I’m one of the few who isn’t condemning an entire group of thousands of working people as ignorant, perverted scum, which are the usual epithets that are freely thrown around anytime even remotely related (or not) to the subject comes up. Anyway, I know mentioning the entitlement I see in much of this is ‘verboten’ so I’ll say no more about it.

  • mostlydigital

    Do they discriminate?  Heck, no. They’ll take anyone’s money.