Regarding Mr. Doug Patton’s guest commentary “Marriage, Free Speech and Chicken Sandwiches” in the East Valley Tribune, Aug. 3, Mr. Doug Patton and Mr. Dan Cathy (of Chick-fil-A) have every right to profess whatever they believe.
I support their right to speak and I am appalled at attempts to restrict Mr. Cathy’s right to do business wherever he chooses. Mr. Patton will likely be surprised that I, as a gay man, even support Mr. Cathy’s multi-million-dollar donations to pass legislation to take away my civil rights, as well as his donations to anti-gay groups calling for me to be labeled as a criminal. These are part of Mr. Cathy’s rights to political speech.
But Mr. Cathy’s statements and his donations make it morally imperative that I speak as well.
Mr. Doug Patton asserts that my working to gain the same marriage rights he enjoys is putting his marriage “under assault.” This is nonsense. If I, as a gay man, have the same civil rights Mr. Patton enjoys, nothing changes for him. He is not required to have a same-sex marriage himself. His church is not required to marry same-sex couples. I can’t imagine why he would change his commitment to his own marriage based on others acquiring the same civil rights he has.
“Under assault?” Merriam-Webster defines “assault” as “a violent physical or verbal attack.” I would certainly not “assault” marriage when I want one so badly.
Christopher Bradley
Mesa
dregstudios posted at 6:31 pm on Thu, Aug 9, 2012.
If companies are people and people vote with dollars then the destination of the restaurant’s donations are open for public debate. It very well should be an issue as to where peoples’ hard-earned money goes after the chicken goes down their gullet. This issue has made our little feathered friend the modern martyr as Chick-fil-A laughs all the way to the bank. Watch the poultry be nailed to the cross and pierced by the spear of destiny at the hands of those devious cows on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2012/08/holy-rollin-poultry-on-cross-chick-fil.html
Mike McClellan posted at 6:11 pm on Thu, Aug 9, 2012.
If traditional marriage is "under assault," the assault is led by the folks in those marriages, half of whom get divorced.
Gay marriage has zip effect on heterosexual marriages.