Squirrel!!!! Rabbit!!!!! Chicken!!!!!

 

(Note:  This is something I worked on a little while ago, but my points are still valid)

     I watched, with just a little amusement, the whole issue with Chick-fil-a over the last couple of weeks.  To me, this was one person who isn’t in government or running for office expressing his opinion.  I looked at the plethora of opinions floating around the internet and the phrase ‘opinions are like belly buttons, everybody has one’ ran through my head.  I am not going to add my opinion on the issue of same-sex marriage to those already out there.  My reasoning for doing that are:  1) It isn’t relevant to what I want to talk about.  And 2) it would distract from the points I want to make.

     My thoughts boil down down to two points:  1) All the talking and ranting about the Chick-fil-a ‘incident’ (for lack of a better term), both pro and con, gave them free publicity.  2) This discussion about a fast food restaurant and the personal views of it’s president distracted people from issues truly deserving of our focus.

     There is a saying, primarily in business and advertising circles, ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’.  If you look at this from that perspective, the net effect was:  people who had no idea that Chick-fil-a existed now do.  Any of those people who chose to patronize them as a result of this probably made up for anyone who stopped.  Look at the different celebrities who ate there in support of the company president, additionally, look at what the sales were for ‘Chick-fil-a appreciation day’.  On the surface, it looks like a net positive for the company.  Now, if I were the kind of person who believed in conspiracy theories, I might think the whipping up of this furor was deliberate in order to improve their bottom line.  Looking at this whole situation in that way, you could say the company was ‘crazy like a fox’.  A conspiracy like that is extremely difficult to prove without rock-solid evidence, so I leave the idea to the realm of conspiracy theories.

     The second point I mentioned above is the more important one in my opinion.  This country has issues to resolve, especially in an election year.  The country is still trying to recover from a recent economic downturn, and there are governmental issues needing attention and discussion.  Instead, we spent our time and energy discussing whether or not Chick-fil-a should be banned, protested, or supported.  The net result, in my opinion, was valuable time and energy that could be better used discussing and dealing with the issues this country faces and how the government and/or the people can deal with them was wasted.  Is same-sex marriage an issue?  We only need to look at the furor this one statement raised to conclude it is. If the discussion focused on federal, state, and local laws and educating each other to our perspective, it would have been more profitable.  If you want to hurt a business owner for their ‘less than intelligent’ statements?  Just don’t do business there.  And be clear when speaking to others about why you won’t do business there.  We as a country cannot hope to resolve the economic issues of this country if we keep losing our focus like a dog chasing squirrels and rabbits.