Chick-fil-A vs. BSA: Don't waste all your energy on the easy haters

It seems that everyone in the social media world is up in arms around Chick-fil-A's unsurprising and offhand bigotry when it comes to LGBT marriage equality. Personally, I'm more saddened by the recent news that the Boy Scouts, after researching and deliberating the issue, have maintained their position on banning gay scouts and scout leaders from their ranks. But more people (at least in my social networks) are finding outrage in the political bent of a private corporation from whom we have come to rely on delivering a reliable chicken product, than are outraged over the deliberate discrimination from one of America's largest youth organizations, on whom we rely to help us raise our children with character, values, and morality.

Evil Corporate Chicken vs. Bigoted Character Education? With both stories hitting the press this week, it seems like we've decided to fight the fryer.

My first thought about this was, "Wow! We are some materialistic fatties if the moral ambiguity of buying fast food chicken is more upsetting than the depraved policies of an organization that is shaping tomorrow's leaders."



Now I think the reason for our preferring to hate on Chick-fil-A is not that we're really all that materialistic and obese - although I won't entirely rule it out. ;) But the reason folks love to hate on Chick-fil-A more than the Boy Scouts is that it's far easier to boycott fast food than it is to negotiate the moral trade-offs of an otherwise outstanding youth organization.

...and Chick-fil-A's cows makes better Facebook memes.

Still, I would argue that we should overcome our inclination to hate the easy haters and gather the moral courage to change the Boy Scouts of America's policies. It definitely will not be an easy boycott. In fact, a boycott probably is not the right answer. Whereas America is ripe with a plethora of fast food alternatives, there are no alternatives to the Boy Scouts. Fighting the Boy Scouts most likely requires dedicated dissent from within. Years and years of dedicated dissent and persistent moral outrage. Not exactly the stuff of popular Facebook memes.

So this week, I hope we can resist the urge to waste all our emotional energy on the corporate fat cats cows of Chick-fil-A and instead remember that there is a much harder, longer, but ultimately more important fight out there.