Posted on Thu, Jul. 17, 2008

e-mail	print	RSS	reprint
AIM	Digg it	del.icio.us	Facebook

Not 'lovin' it': Chain supports gay group

Bigot. Homophobe. Hater. These are the terms that many gay activists and their supporters use to label you if you oppose gay marriage, or believe homosexuality is immoral.

What is surprising is to see the spokesman for McDonald's USA, Bill Whitman, incorporate some of the same rhetoric when justifying the company's support and involvement in the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. The chamber lobbies Congress on a wide range of issues, including the promotion of same-sex marriage.

"Hatred has no place in our culture," Whitman said in an interview with the Washington Post. "That includes McDonald's, and we stand by and support our people to live and work in a society free of discrimination and harassment."

The "hatred" he is referring to is the American Family Association's call for a boycott of the restaurant chain. The AFA is a conservative Christian, pro-family group that promotes Christian virtues and traditional values. The AFA says it sends 2.8 million people its e-mail alerts and 170,000 people its monthly magazine. It also operates radio stations throughout the country, including one in Wichita, KCFN 91.1-FM.

I'm not gung-ho about boycotts, which the AFA regularly calls for, but I find Whitman's rhetoric troubling. Many Christians oppose homosexuality on moral grounds, not because they hate gays. When it comes to gay marriage, many people are against it because it doesn't offer the same societal benefits as heterosexual unions, such as procreation and providing the child a mother and father. Again, it's not motivated by hate.

The AFA says that McDonald's has taken sides on an important cultural issue. McDonald's donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in exchange for membership in the chamber. Richard Ellis, who is vice president of communications for McDonald's, now also has a seat on the organization's board of directors. The boycott "is about McDonald's, as a corporation, refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars," says a statement on the AFA-created Web site www.boycottmcdonalds.com. "McDonald's has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage."

The AFA also wants people to know what the boycott is not about: "This boycott is not about hiring homosexuals. It is not about homosexuals eating at McDonald's. It is not about how homosexual employees are treated," says the Web site.

The official position of McDonald's is that it isn't "aggressively promoting the homosexual agenda," as an AFA newsletter suggested. It says that it is only reaching out to part of the market for its food.

That would be more believable if its spokesman hadn't incorporated the terminology of the gay activists.

Said Tim Wildmon, president of the AFA: "We're saying that there are people who support AFA who don't appreciate their dollars from the hamburgers they bought being put into an organization that's going to fight against the values they believe in."

I have doubts that the boycott will have any financial effect on McDonald's, but what it has done is let the public know where McDonald's stands as a corporation. That might be something to keep in mind when trying to decide whether you're hungry for a Big Mac or a Whopper.

Brent Castillo appears in Opinion on Thursdays. Reach him at bcopinion@gmail.com.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.CommentBody@

@Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@