Actually, it really is some of the healthiest fast food out there. I’ve actually lost weight from eating Chick-fil-A (which I did almost constantly back when I worked there). In fact, if it weren’t for this one manager who was a total bongo, I’d probably still be there, and still be eating.
Uhm.. losing weight doesnt make something good for you, and neither does over processing the meat, bread, and anything else that goes into the sandwiches to the point where you dont get any nutritional value out of it.
Yeah, it actually is relatively healthy. And I liked their soft-serve icecream. (So far, no other fast-foot place has been able to get that right.) However, Mike brings up a good point, it’s not worth it to support that sort of thing.
I tried to think of one for FF a long time ago efore FF11 came out but no memorable places from the games I played started with “K.” Afterwards I hadn’t played FF11 do yeah
Not how gay works. That’s manga and manga only, otherwise it gets weird fast. Actually, no it’s weird there too. Plus ukes always end up really teary eyed and weepy when it comes to sex, and the semes are always really weirdly rapey. I feel like Ethan is none of these things (though the image is kind of hilarious).
Well, to be fair, in Japan those roles DO exist because sex is not nearly as free form and spontaneous. There is an active partner and a passive partner. In heterosexual sex, the active partner is always the man. In homosexual sex, there still has to be ONE active partner and ONE passive partner.
It’s actually a real thing over there, not just an arbitrary rule made up by a bunch of yaoi manga artists.
Gender roles and sexuality in Japan is a fairly complicated subject, and I don’t claim to be an expert, but I’ve seen enough criticisms of yaoi portrayals of homosexual relationships versus actual gay culture in japan to be be exceptionally skeptical of anyone who presents seme/uke as rote.
Kindra was referring to the attitude or stereotype in Japan, not speaking “in general” based on personal experience. The clue is in the first sentence: “Well, to be fair, in Japan those roles DO exist because sex is not nearly as free form and spontaneous.“
Well, I still don’t think that’s quite right. Female dominant or whatever sex happens in Japan. Maybe it’s not as culturally acceptable, or it’s seen as more of a kink rather than a normal alternative, but I’m pretty sure that applies to homosexual sex in Japan too.
No, you’ve got it more or less right. Traditionally, dominant or aggressive women challenge gender roles, which (traditionally speaking) is unacceptable. Ditto for homosexuality, transvestism, transgenderism, etc.
What I MEANT to say here was, “Oh! So Ethan IS greying! I thought either my eyes were going weird or he’d always been like that and I just somehow forgot.”
Yep. Evil. It’s owned by some Mormon folks, who take the whole not working on Sunday bit very seriously.
And also with the suppression of the gays and giving money to fight the gay marriage. Since it’s been proven that the more older brothers a guy has, the more chance he has of being born gay, and Mormons are encouraged to have large families . . . .
I suppose they are worried all the younger sons will run off and be happy together and not procreate lots with their wife they married in sooper sekret ceremony like their prophet told them too.
I was raised Mormon. They have MAJOR issues.
I eat at Chik Fil A sometimes anyway. (they have the best milkshakes in town) but I always feel guilty about it.
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”(Luke 14:26).
But I think the consensus is he actually meant “reject as less important than me.”
If by “consensus” you mean “the consensus of people who want the Bible to mean what they like, not what it actually says,” then I give to you this other passage purportedly spoken by Jesus: “I have come to bring fire on the Earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on Earth? No. I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” — Luke 12:49-53
Yeah, that’s right, Jesus is here to make people break the commandment “Honor thy father and mother.” This is why a common route to atheism is a careful reading of the Bible. 😉
Hey, I’m a Christian and I acknowledge the many stupid things said in the Bible. ^_~
The first step towards being a BETTER Christian is remembering that it was written by SEVERAL people who had their own memories, agendas, and interpretations of events and then put together by people who had their own agendas and cherry-picked what they wanted to include in biblical canon.
And that it’s been translated a few times.
As such, as a Christian who supports gay marriage, I recognize instead the need to explore my faith in an individualistic fashion and make my own decisions, since I’ll only know the truth when I die. Or I will simply be dead, and thus won’t much care.
Your point: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
My point: Look closely and hopefully you’ll see that it’s all bathwater.
If you can figure out what parts of the Bible to keep and which to ignore, then why use the Bible at all? I went from being a devout Christian to an atheist/agnostic/secular humanist because of the self-contradictory nonsense (see above), anti-scientific claims (young Earth creationism, exorcisms/demonic possession, geocentrism, etc.), and outright advocacy for evil behavior (gay bashing, misogyny, pro-slavery, etc.) in the Bible.
Secular humanism seems a far more rational basis for ethics than cherry-picking from poorly informed, contradictory, and superstitious ramblings from thousands of years ago.
And I say that’s great for you and am not trying to convert or preach or anything. I do not believe in young earth theories nor do I say creationism should be taught in schools. As for other aspects of the bible, including demonic possession is simply par for the course for a system of faith revolving around supernatural events and creatures. Advocacies of morally reprehensible behaviors are, again, an example of the time in which it was made and another example of why the Bible should NOT be interpreted literally nor the end all of Christianity when faith in Jesus is more important than the contradictions between the old and new testaments and how wearing two different fabric threads is somehow that important in the eyes of God. Slavery is a funny one, though, since slavery in biblical times is very different from the modern interpretations of slavery. Not saying it’s right, just saying it’s different.
And even then, I don’t get my ethics from the Bible. But whatever, not here to start an argument. I just know people who regularly enjoy Chick-Fil-A and they wouldn’t exactly be happy to learn about their higher-ups’ support of anti-gay marriage groups, myself included.
And one might also point out that they also spend a pretty sizable chunk of cash on orphanages and scholarships via the WinShape foundation.
They’re a mixed bag, but as someone who went to school with a lot of kids who only had families to live with because of Truett Cathy, I’m willing to weigh the balance of good & bad in favor of good for them.
It’s not that Christians (as a group) hate gays, it’s that their god said it’s a sin, and they’re just trying to help people avoid Hell. It’s not like the groups they donate to use the money to buy bombs and guns after all. Instead, they buy advertisements and set up foundations that try to talk people straight. Ultimately, they are inefectual since they only people they ‘change’ are those who want to be changed; they have no power to do anything but yap like chihuahuas about their beliefs.
I AM Christian, and I don’t believe that. If god hates gay people, why would he make them? You also have to remember that the Bible’s gone nearly two millenia without an update. I don’t take a book that old at face value.
If The Bible is the word of God, then it doesn’t need an update. I don’t think God sits around thinking, “Hmm….they really seem to be into that homosexuality thing down there nowadays. I guess I’d better soften my stance on that since it’s so popular now.”
The Word is what it is and people can decide how much they want to listen to it. That’s that whole free will thing that we’re always talking about…
I wish that was true. Christian groups are behind the restricting of homosexual rights, harassment of GLBT teens, and ” Pray the gay away” camps that qualify as torture under any reasonable definition. If they don’t hate gay people, they sure look like they do.
Kind of. I find this statement a bit misleading. The accurate statement would be “the charitable foundation created by Chick-Fil-A’s vice-president donated $2 million to Christian groups that have participated in varying levels of anti-LGBT activities, even though that is not the stated purpose of those organizations.” Saying that Chick-Fil-A donated $2 mil to anti-gay groups makes it sound like they donated it to Americans for Truth About Homosexuality or something.
The biggest recipients were:
Marriage & Family Legacy Fund: $994,199
Fellowship Of Christian Athletes: $480,000
National Christian Foundation: $240,000
Note that I’m not excusing them, as if you are donating $994,199 to an organization, I’d think you’d look a bit closer at all of their activities, but I don’t think it’s accurate to make it out to be some big anti-gay agenda on the part of the company.
The Marriage & Family Legacy Fund was created by Chick-Fil-A’s senior vice president to finance both national and local advertisements in favor of “traditional marriage.”
Chick-Fil-A doesn’t really have to examine what that organization is. They created it. And the emergence of gay marriage is the reason it exists.
Hmmm, in that case, my bad. What I read about the foundation was that its goal was to provide counseling and such to reduce divorce rates, but that could be wrong.
It doesn’t help that their website doesn’t provide any information because all their links are broken and shoot you back to the donate page. “Donate now!”
“What to?”
“Marriage!”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Donate now!”
Yes. You now have turn in your gay card. All gay points earned up to eating Chik-fil-a are considered null and void, any points afterwards can be contributed to earning your new gay card.
Yeah, there are. they’re pretty rare, like Wendy’s, but there are a few scattered about.
Aren’t any in SF proper, though, to my knowledge. Probably because of our ridiculous fast food tax (same reason we don’t have nearly as many mcdonalds’ as other cities I’ve lived in, and they’re kind of out of the way)
I still see no reason to not eat at chik-fil-a. I spent my money on a badass chicken sandwich and some waffle fries. What they want to do with that money afterwards is their business.
I take it you are unable to comprehend the notion of contributing time and/or money to a political cause you support, because there is no connection between the cause acquiring the money and them spending it on their goals?
That’s something different, though. We’re really talking about two separate financial transactions here. Seerow gives Chik-Fil-A money in exchange for a chicken sandwhich. That money goes partially to the cost of the chicken, breading, spices, etc., part to the cooking and preparing of the meal, part to the upkeep of the restaurant, and part to the proceeds of the company itself. Chik-Fil-A then takes those proceeds, and donates out of them to the hate groups, part of which goes to signs, part of which goes to bribesCampaign contributions, etc. Really, any portion of your money could end up in the hands of the same groups because one of the people who works there believes in what they do and wants to contribute.
Except when you know a company expressly and financially supports a cause that you don’t agree with…?
There’s a difference between “I spend money at this company and that money may end up in the paychecks of some of their employees who may spend that money to support anti-gay causes,” and “I spend money at this company that, as a company, will use that money to support anti-gay causes.”
If you can avoid buying from companies that put their money toward morally reprehensible things, then more power to you. Probably harder than you realize, though.
I’m curious, where do you buy your food from? Where do you buy your clothes? Do you buy anything off of Amazon?
I’m just saying that there is a difference between buying chicken from Chik-Fil-A and donating to anti-homosexual groups yourself. And there is a difference between buying from corporations that you know donates to groups that work for causes you oppose and, well, buying from corporations that do not do that.
How about this scenario. You buy something at McDonalds. Someone gets one of your bills in change at that same McDonalds. They later buy something at Chick-Fil-A. Currency that you personally injected into the commerce system has now been used to support hate groups!
Great way to put it. What businesses do with their profits is really their own business. I spend money at Chik Fil A to get tasty, tasty chicken, and that’s the end of it. 🙂
He might as well eat it as he has already given them money which means that whenever he eats it or not, that money will go to wherever CFA feels like it should go.
It’s financially supporting a group that funds bigoted acts. Now, it’s a tiny fraction of your money that would be going to getting rid of gay rights, but that’s where some of it is going. And that’s too much, IMO.
It’s supposed to be pronounced “chick-fill-ay'” (emphasis on the last syllable), like a chicken fillet (which is another word that isn’t pronounced the way it’s spelled).
I think I’ll call it “chick-fil’-la” from now on though, ’cause that sounds funnier. 😀
Oh hell. THIS. Chick-Fil-A has excellent food, but they’re also crazy fundamentalist Christians, packing all the homophobia that entails. It’s a difficult quandary, considering I’m one of the damned.
This is probably why we don’t have chick-fil-a in the uk.
Any restaurant of theirs that opens up over here would have protests outside and then masked yobs disguised as ‘protesters’ would just burn the place down as soon as this news got out. We’re more liberal that way you see…
Yobs haven’t burnt down Harrods yet, and there’s an anti-fur protest outside it every week…
I figure Chik-Fil-A wouldn’t want to touch the UK, considering anyone publicly anti-gay is considered a bigoted and hateful homophobe – somewhat rightfully – and discrimination against gays is considered pretty much unacceptable (although it happens more than racism and it’s still fairly present). Forgive us if we’re too liberal like that, although I personally think it’s a good thing.
I refuse to answer that based on your premise that the two situations are comparable. It’s the same difference between being a Packers fan and being left-handed. One of these things is choosing which team to root for and the other is a harmless circumstance of our birth.
No, not “in other words, yes.” You first have to ask me a question based on a premise that I don’t reject. We also have to agree on what “demeaning” means. There are too many variables here, and too much false equivalency.
And they were all just dirty jokes about sodomy and/or fellatio, for the record. I just kind of wish that didn’t have to be the go-to whenever a gay dude popped up on our screens. I mean, sure, in moderation, yes, fine, whatever, but there was a whole fleet of them.
I can just picture it now: Mike will wait for Ethan to have waited hours in line for the Black Friday sale at Target, and at a minute before opening, let him know that they’ve also donated money to politicians who are anti-gay and anti-choice
I’ve never heard of an anti-choice politician… or anything, really.
Might you be using a buzzword disguising a meaning that is *slightly* different from what you actually said to make it look worse?
Wait, do people wait in line for the *opening*? What’s the point of that?
Pat, people who believe abortion should be legal generally describe themselves as “pro-choice” while people who believe it should be illegal describe themselves as “pro-life.” Once the latter group started describing the former as “anti-life” the former naturally turned the rhetorical trick around and called opponents of abortion “anti-choice.”
That so many pro-lifers (and I am not saying you’re one of them, but I’ve met quite a few) get offended at being called “anti-choice” after they’ve calle their opponents “anti-life” shows what hypocritical crap-sacks they are. The notion of being treated as they treat others appalls them.
And by the way, the term “anti-choice” is quite literally accurate, since they want to strip women of the choice on whether to abort or carry to term. If an abortion opponent wants to argue that women shouldn’t have that choice, there are fora where they can make their case, but if they advocate eliminating that choice out of one side of their mouths while denying the accuracy of the label out of the other, they can bite me.
I remember hearing about that. Sigh… A local movie theater here in SF did the same thing. It sucks when something you enjoy is working against you like that.
And damn, its been a while since Mike has done something like this in the DoA universe. I was missing it.
I’ve been lucky enough to never have In-N-Out before, and I never will because of this very reason.
Chick-Fil-A, on the other hand, already has my taste buds in their grip of doom. Plus, the one I go to is run by a lesbian manager and bi assistant manager, and I met my ex-boyfriend when I was working there, so despite the fact that *some* of the money goes to anti-gay groups, I like to think I’m helping pay the wages of the awesome homosexual Christian people who work there.
Wait, what? I lived in California for 27 years, and routinely ate In-N-Out for at least the latter ten of those years, and I NEVER saw scripture on anything they handed me.
Man, I have the same type of problem with the Salvation Army; I’m too fricken poor to buy new clothes and they’re the only secondhand place anywhere near me, but I hate myself for giving more money to and organization that I know is prejudiced against me (though at least I can take comfort in the money going on to help people who need it more than I do).
Really. So many people willing to compromise their values for a fast food sandwich. Seriously. I mean, if you’re ambivalent about gay rights, or don’t support them, then whatever, but if you’re pro gay rights it should take more then some processed chicken and waffle fries to get you to hand your money over to a corporation that donates funds to hate groups.
Now I’m reminded of how much I miss Chick-Fil-A. I haven’t eaten there in a year for this very reason. Damn, I want a spicy chicken wrap. But I will hold strong, no matter how delicious their food is.
OOOH! We should get that “Top Secret Recipes” show to suss out what makes Chik-Fil-A so tasty. That way we could make our own knockoffs like we can with Bloomin’ Onions and Dippin’ Dots!
Also, a lot of the organizations that promote big business also promote anti-gay legislation, so sometimes businesses donate to those and then have to deal with the backlash from the rest of it (see: Target).
In the very little research published onthe subject, it is thought that cephalopods may be highly intelligent. But they also taste really good. …I have decided to go with the known tasty qualities.
Cephalopods ARE highly intelligent. I had a friend who had a pet octopus and that thing was a clever little fucker. More so than a cat or dog. Actually made me stop eating cephalopods for like a year…
but then tastiness defeated my conscience.
Whenever starts off a reply with “Ah, yes,” that is ALL I can hear.
Also, what about the horrifying conditions the chickens they get their meat from endure? At some point you need to either just become a vegetarian/animal rights activist or just not give a shit.
And Ethan should realize that he’s already given them his money.
Oh, for the love of Pete, why would he care? Just finish your meal, then never buy from them again! He didn’t know when he bought the food and he’s hungry! The end!
i still think intent has a lot to do with it. it’s one thing if they donated money solely because the groups were anti-gay and they wanted to support this. i doubt that’s what happened. i also read somewhere else that for some of these groups they did as little as provided food.
To eat the sandwich of hate and tastiness or not to eat the sandwich of hate and tastiness, that is not the question.
Take the food you have only eaten one bite from and ask for a refund.
Most fast food managers will give in and give you a refund and they can’t resell the food.
Say what you will about Mike, but he’s a WELL-RESEARCHED asshole. Imagine all the articles he reads daily just to be prepared for instances such as these. He’s like a Douchebag Batman.
“I refuse to answer that based on your premise that the two situations are comparable.” – I don’t think you know what “comparable” means. You made a joke attacking Chick-fil-a while simultaneously mocking gays. So how is a gay joke not comparable? And it is a little odd to say anti-gay marriage equals hate. Marriage isn’t a right, and even the most “gay friendly” of societies – Ancient Greece and Medieval Japan – still had marriage as between a man and a woman because it was about reproduction and legitimacy of children. To then let a bunch of people make nasty attacks on Christians which are still a majority of the country and a majority of your readers doesn’t make any sense. Very few of your readers are actually liberal, which was pointed out before. Perhaps you want to alienate your fan base?
I am actually pretty fine alienating people who are against the most basic of civil rights because of the circumstances of birth. You don’t see me courting the KKK, do you? Same thing exactly.
The majority of Americans profess to be Christian. The majority of Americans also profess to be pro-gay marriage. Clearly you can be Christian and be for gay marriage. In fact, they might just outnumber those who don’t. So I feel pretty secure in my decision to be a decent human being.
I think my husband would argue that you -can- be Christian (Even a priest) and still be for gay marriage.
Heck, he’s prime evidence that you can be Christian -and- be gay -and- be married to another man, and still believe that Jesus was God made flesh, here to preach about charity, love, and the rise of the powerless over tyrants.
I’m sorry if my ability to file a joint tax return in the state of California offends you, but it’s not -my- fault that you decided to get all bent out of shape about it.
But the Bible says the gay is bad! It says so in LEVITICUS! Which all Christians everywhere obey in its entirety, rather than ignoring unless it gives them an excuse to hate someone.
If you really want to stop supporting companies that are doing or have done evil, you’re pretty much going to have to get into a grass shack and grow your own food… Just as a start, you have IBM, Dole, Chiquita, and many more. I’m sure you can find a lot more that have done evil in the name of profits.
Basic of civil rights? David, marriage is not a right. It never was a right. “Civil rights” are things determined by society to form the operation of society, i.e. voting, owning property, etc., so even if marriage was a “right” it wouldn’t be a civil one. And your comparing someone who is against gay marriage to the KKK is really off base. You might as well call Chick-Fil-A Nazis. You basically destroyed any argument you could have made. Green Peace kills actual people, as do other groups. The SPCA/human society single handedly kills more animals than everyone else in the US combined. Do you know how many businesses support them? And you are upset that Christians want the original definition of marriage that has existed since the beginning of civilization to be upheld is somehow the end of the world?
Actually, the Supreme Court has already defined marriage as a “basic civil right of man,” in Virginia v. Loving. So in America, it is already a basic civil right.
That last sentence doesn’t make any sense unless you are really into the idea of marriage being a property transaction? Marriage has evolved over time.
That isn’t true at all, dog. It determined that marriage fell under the “equal protection clause” which has nothing to do with “civil rights” but “due process” and regarded people of differing ethnicities while still allowing bans on other things, such as banning incest. The Supreme Court made it rather clear that it was narrowly defined to race because they did not want to allow for incest based on the fact that marriage primarily deals with reproduction.
“These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.
Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). See also Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888). To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.” – Chief Justice Warren in the opinion of the Court.
But okay. Yes, Loving v. Virginia very specifically dealt with interracial marriages because that is how the law works — the suit was about interracial marriages, and discriminatory laws are illegal under due process because…they don’t afford different groups equal standing under the law. I don’t know how you think this isn’t related to civil rights, though, unless you find the Civil Rights Movement to be misnamed.
ANYWAY, Loving v. Virginia ended up not turning over other laws prohibiting certain marriages, partially because since many of those laws were upheld by Bowers v. Hardwick. It’s not because marriage primarily deals with reproduction, though — Bowers upheld laws based on _morality_, and was subsequently overturned in Lawrence v. Texas anyway.
The history of marriage is varied and murky. There is no “original definition of marriage” that we know about. Some cultures arranged couples one way, others did another way, and it was often for a variety of economical or political reasons. Women were often property to be bartered between warlords.
I mean, c’mon, you know how Isaac got his first wife? Abraham sent a servant to go pick out one of his cousins at random. That’s not exactly “When Harry Met Sally.”
“There is no “original definition of marriage” that we know about” Not true at all. We have access to laws of various cultures as recorded, and most have very specific statements about legitimacy, the rights of the husband, inheritance, etc. We even have Hamarabi’s language regarding that. And if you knew anything about Hebrew tradition, you wouldn’t say “women were often property” – instead, they were the ones who determined tribal legitimacy. Judiasm, as most ancient cultures, were matriarchal because it was impossible to truly say who the father was (hence legitimacy was important).
Marriage existed with society. Not before society. Marriage is a legal contract that recognizes consanguinity, which is the unification and separation of bloodlines. That is how “heirs” were determined and how illegitimate children were kept out of inheritance. That is why homosexual couples in Greece and Japan still married women and had children with them.
When and where did society precisely start? You know, so we know where to look for the records of the First Marriage, as such a document obviously exists.
Society proper has many stated origins – some say Ancient Greece, others Hammurabi. Mostly, it is based around works that describe codified laws, bureaucratic systems, attempts at literature and currency, etc.
Aside from the bullshit vagueness of trying to pick a proper origin of society (ancient Greece? Hell no. That’s waaaaaaaay too modern), you’re also going off of the idea that marriage has a single origin- which is totally false. It’s arisen separately in different cultures over time.
Precisely what do you mean by “society”? Because I suspect you’re using it in a different way from the way way *I* would use it.
“Society” pre-dates written records by a significant margin. So saying that “Marriage existed with society. Not before society” is so completely ridiculous that I can’t even. Dude.
…Unless, perchance, you are defining “Marriage” as “a union between one man and one woman performed and authorized by a Christian priest of Jehovah”? In which case, I assume that you consider marriages sanctified by Allah or Shivah or Budda or Thor or The Great Spirit or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whoever to be not real “marriages” at all, and therefore invalid? Come now, let’s have actual, precise definitions of the terms we use so we can compare apples to apples.
See, me, I would define marriage as “a state-sanctioned exclusive sexual union assumed to be more or less permanent unless a follow-up ritual is performed, joining two unrelated, un-currently-married, mentally-competent adults in a permanent relationship with overtones of co-ownership of joint offspring and material possessions acquired by the couple during the timeline of the union.” So, see, by my definition, which is also basically the same one used by my government here in Canada, there is absolutely no reason beyond unbelievable douchery to forbid two single, competent, unrelated adults from getting “married” based solely on gender, any more than one would forbid it on race, or economic background, or educational level, or hair colour, or ethnicity, or anything else.
So, please, what specifically is your definition of marriage? And can you accept that the term is used by more than just Christians, and that we may not be meaning “a church-sanctioned exclusive holy union between one man and one woman performed by a Christian priest”? And that, therefore, arguing against “gay marriage” in the context of the larger society of your country, rather than simply as something which your specific religion forbids its FOLLOWERS, is infringing upon the rights of others who may not actually FOLLOW your religion?
Or do I need to start passing laws against eating pork? And banning Communion wine as being an affront to Allah? Because it’s the SAME THING.
Actually, same-sex marriage existed both in ancient China and Rome (albeit it wasn’t very common). That it existed in China is a particularly glaring counter to your argument, as China is one of the oldest civilizations known to historians.
Erm… Marriage was, for a good chunk of human history, a property deal. The wife being the property, of course, exchanged for money or food or other valuables. You’ll notice that in our part of the world, that’s no longer the case. So by your logic, that means that marriage is either a civil right, or the definition of marriage has undergone many changes in the history of our planet and it’s silly to try to protect its “sanctity” based on its stability as an institution. Or, you know, both.
“Marriage was, for a good chunk of human history, a property deal” Not at all. If anything, most marriage laws were created to protect the rights of the woman – many spousal abuse laws in ancient customs, denying any other women who had illegitimate children from having any legal right to inheritance, etc. Marriage laws were mostly to protect the woman and the woman’s heirs.
Marriage was a way to acquire or consolidate wealth and land between families. I’m not saying that’s all it was, but that was one of its purposes. That’s a property deal. The bride (and often the groom) often had no say in who they married. If marriage hadn’t undergone a much-needed redefinition, I might not have had the right to choose my own husband. Unless you exchanged a few goats and a sheaf of wheat for your spouse, you’ve probably benefited from that redefinition too. You’re also legally allowed to leave or divorce them if you’d like! Without getting stoned to death or anything! It’s a brave new world, Hmm.
Sooo… the laws that were overturned only like ONE CENTURY AGO IN THE WESTERN WORLD saying that a woman’s property automatically became the property of her husband as soon as she married, for him to do with as he pleased, and with her having no say whatsoever; or the laws that said that a man had total control over his wife to the point that he could have her have a clitorectomy, a hysterectomy, or even have her committed, solely on his say-so and completely against her will; or the one that said that children were exclusively the property of the man and that a wife was kidnapping them if she took them away from him, even in an abusive situation– these were designed for the protection of women?!!?
Okay, you’re either a troll or so completely clueless that you don’t get to play with the big kids anymore. Go sit at the children’s table. The adults are trying to have a conversation over here. No, you can’t stay and listen. You wouldn’t understand what we’re talking about anyways.
Polygamy was not “sanctioned” in so much as it became necessary in some tribal cultures that emphasized herding animals. It is also only in the Bible pre-law and has interesting twists (such as wanting to marry a younger daughter but custom forced the older daughter to have to be married off first).
Okay, here’s where my back gets put right up. I am not a Christan. Do you see Jew protesting outside supermarkets that sell pork products? Or Moslems demonstrating against liquor stores? No? Then how about this: Decide that, WITHIN YOUR RELIGION, you don’t support gay marriage and refuse to sanctify it by performing gay marriages within your church. And then stop telling the rest of us how to live our goddamned lives according to YOUR religion when we’re not even part of it!!
It’s called the Separation of Church and State, and it’s a DAMNED GOOD IDEA. And if your ONLY argument supporting het-only marriages is that it’s all about reproduction and the legitimacy of children, then you’d BETTER start having laws passed that require fertility tests for everyone about to be married, ban anyone infertile or post-menopausal from being married, and outlaw orphanages.
Also, to say “Christians want the original definition of marriage that has existed since the beginning of civilization” with a straight face is to show an astounding ignorance about history, culture, anthropology, and basically everything in general.
YOU GUYS have decided that the term “marriage” denotes “One man + one woman” and really recently, so far as the existence of humanity and culture goes. It’s a common Western concept only because Christians thought that converting entire countries by force and slaughtering anyone who refused to convert was a really good idea.
I strongly suggest you take a decent course on anthropology from a reputable, NON-CHRISTIAN university, and listen to the FACTS with an open mind. Here’s one way you can tell if it’s a reputable course/university: If anyone mentions Intelligent Design as a plausible theory, or discounts “Darwinism” or evolution on the basis that it’s “just a theory”, or thinks that the age of the earth can be measured in millennia– run.
Lol, true. But then, my age can be measured in seconds. But it’d be stupid to do it. 😉
Aw, you know what I mean. But yeah. Should have phrased that better.
Wanna know the part about that whole “The earth is only six thousand years old!” thing that cracks me up the most? That calculation was done about a thousand years ago. XD And yet it’s STILL only six thousand years old.
Guess I’m still, hmm, say twenty-seven then? Yeah, let’s stop counting there. That was a good year. 😉
How do you know how many of his viewers are liberal? Most webcomic readers in general are young people, most of them relatively progressive. I do not see how a social conservative could even enjoy DOA.
Plus, please do not compare sexuality to religious ideology. One is a conscious choice and the other (most of us would agree) is not!
Also, how is it relevant that the majority of the U.S. is Christian? Is it better to offend a minority than a majority? I don’t understand your logic.
Besides a few characters, most of the characters David creates are rather conservative leaning and other webcomics have poked fun of his general tone. Even when he depicts gay characters, it is like the above comic in which he makes the gay character appear absolutely ridiculous. I’m surprised that no one has pointed out the actual homophobic nature of this comic, but it isn’t surprising because, as I said, very little of his audience is liberal and even fewer are homosexual. But that is another point – David doesn’t realize that yes, there are gay people who are against gay marriage. He has a stereotype of homosexuality, and it is a bad caricature. Try changing the comic to having a flannel wearing hunter about to use his new iPad and someone come up and say “You know, Apple donated to Obama”. It would make even more sense yet still be completely stupid and unrealistic.
Joel Watson sure made a big deal about it, as did many others. Try doing a poll sometime. Have you never bothered to see what webcomic forums say about you? You aren’t Questional Content or any other standard “liberal” comic, and quite far from it. I find it interesting how you are appalled by the obvious. Are you shocked too that Transformers has always been deemed quite conservative and that both the recent backers of it and of the original cartoon were conservative?
I’m not the one with a stick up my ass. I thought the original comic was amusing. Then David used the comments to start attacking Christians and comparing them to the KKK. Really off the wall.
Just scanned the comments, the KKK comparision didn’t come up until he responded to you, and I didn’t see any Christian jokes before that either. (The left-handed thing doesn’t count, it was a similie not a joke and the worst implication in it was that it was a “harmless circumstance of our birth.” Hardly insulting stuff.)
I can’t even tell from your context what “it” I supposedly “made a big deal about” but I do not appreciate you throwing my name around when troll bating one of my friends. David portrays homosexuals accurately because he portrays them as people. Just regular people. Flaws, issues, varying degrees of intelligence and emotional maturity. Ya know, just like everyone else. And despite your exhaustive market research and independent polling, I assure you that David has as large of a gay following as any other comic that portrays a homosexual without making them a ridiculous stereotype. I mean, Ive only say next to him at con after con as he talks to his readers (gay and straight alike), but what do I know?
PS
Show me ONE (just one) homosexual AGAINST equal rights for gays and I will show you… nothing. Because you can’t find that one guy. It’s never going to happen.
It is kinda odd to assume that all gay people are the same. Log Cabin Republicans and Libertarian Homosexuals have been rather outwardly against gay marriage over the past decade.
Willis’s comics are homophobic because all of his gay characters are ridiculous? You may as well call them heterophobic as well, because–in case you haven’t noticed–almost every character he creates is a total nutjob. Both Walkys have the maturity of a seven-year-old, SP!Jacob’s got the sex-addiction thing, Joe is a nympho, Sal leaps through windows, Billie is an alcoholic, and guess what? All of them are straight. (Mostly.) Ethan, Leslie, Malaya and so forth are ridiculousness, but their sexuality is almost entirely unrelated to that. (Since when is being a toy collector a gay stereotype?)
His gay character isn’t homophobic because it is ridiculous but because it is a bad stereotype and one about his homosexuality. It amounts to “you can’t eat that because you are gay”. Then it is compounded by saying a conscience, i.e. a moral thought process, would be gay. It transitions from an act of sexuality to something that amounts to middle school attacks.
So, he’s a gay stereotype because he has qualms about funding an organization that funds organizations that want him to not be able to marry?
Also, considering a good deal of Mike’s dialogue is mom-fucking jokes, you’re not far from the mark with the “something that amounts to middle school attacks” comment. That’s sort of the point. And I don’t see how someone who is, as far as we know, not gay, making a comment at the expense of a gay character turns said gay character into a stereotype.
This DOA was forwarded to me from one of my best gay friends (he beat me to reading it) saying he & his boyfriend were morally straight as they still love Chick-fill-a & honestly DOA & Shortpacked us one of their favorite web comics. So homophonic? Not unless you want to start calling my friends “self-hating gays” which strong how you’ve defended your arguments so far, you just might
I like how you have somehow divined the societal and political leanings of all Mr. Willis’s readership. If I had powers like that, I wouldn’t be wasting them on internet comments. Maybe you should go into politics.
I fall under the LGBT umbrella. I support gay marriage. I am usually very liberal in most regards. I am in the military. I am married. I am middle-aged. I have kids. I am not a Christian. I am not an American.
I read Shortpacked and Dumbing of Age and the others and I enjoy the hell out of them. I find them well-written, intelligent, and entertaining.
When the site starts collecting and publishing stats on the gender, alignment (Lawful Good, since you ask), religion, age, and country of origin of the readers, then you are allowed to make broad generalizations on the composition of his readers.
Until then you’re just pulling numbers out of your ass and we all know it.
Incidentally, could you please explain to me how and were, precisely, in detail, this comic in ANY WAY mocks gays? Or any other group? Because I don’t see it and I think it’s just you.
Right now I would like to ask “Hmm” a few thing. One, (to settle my unbridled curiousity) who the fuck are you and why do you profess to know so much? Two, are you so fucking unromantic that you think marriage is still only about procreation? Three, by that logic, do you think infertile couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married? (I recognize that is a straw man argument or, at least, hope it is.) Thirdly (that’s a word, right), why does Willis have to conform to what you deem to be his audience? Also, if he think that segment of his audience is WRONG does he a.) not have the right to think so and b.) does he not have the right to think so in his webcomic? And finally, if this is a matter of what’s tradition and not hate, why does feel as though I’m hated?
BTW I only hate in self-defense, and when I do, I will at least have the decency to admit to you (and myself) that that’s how I feel.
You know what I’ve found?
There’s no way to change a person’s opinion when it’s based on ideology. I’ll like to a good SMBC comic about that. Hang on, lemme find it…
My word, that took a long time. Well, here it is: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2307#comic
That’s pretty much how it goes~ I guess you’ll have to copy+paste it to your browser.
Yeah, Zach Weiner knows how it goes~
I love how he just says “no that’s not true” after every fact that’s presented to him (I’m assuming it’s a “him”) and then basically rephrases what the other person said anyway…it’s astounding.
It marriage today was what it used to be, then women would be sold off like property and have no say in anything. They would be little more than sex slaves and always have to obey the husband.
Chik-fil-A is also involved with some of the creepy dominionist stuff that’s going on in the states. Don’t know what dominionism is? It’s a far-right movement to turn the US into a theocracy. Not a conspiracy or a cult mind you, just a lot of fundamentalists who genuinely believe that all government should be run according to their interpretation of the christian bible. See also: Quiverfull, the Republican party.
Actually, there is a Chick-Fil-A in Fairfield, which is about an hour from San Francisco. As someone that lives an hour from San Francisco and makes regular trips there to get food and waste time, I can definitely say that someone from San Francisco would totally go to Fairfield for Chick-Fil-A. (I went further for Sonic when the first drivable distance location opened)
I am happy that I don’t have to do this battle anymore because I live in England now. The food was so damn good, the antigayness so damn bad. although, as someone pointed out, individual franchises sometimes would rebel. I knew a gay friend who actually worked at one. So confusing!
Chik-Fil-A supports traditional marriage, Ben and Jerry’s supports many left wing and liberal causes. Nobody says anything about them. Pick and chose your agenda.
Mike’s a dick, man. He’s just an intrusive asshole. I guess people find his rudeness so outrageous it’s funny, but to me, he’s not funny, he’s just outrageously rude. Don’t know about other Mikes of Willis’s universe, but this one is completely and irredeemably contemptible.
Eh, Chik-Fil-A is still awesome, its not what the owner does, its how the food is prepared and how they servers act, in my opinion…
Chik-Fil-A has a much higher standard for employees then other fastfood joints.
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Yeah, that’s how I feel =(
Hey don’t worry about it. If they have promo deals you can always by those, as they actually cost them money.
Besides, I’m betting that shit is uber unhealthy and you could make better yourself at home.
Actually, it really is some of the healthiest fast food out there. I’ve actually lost weight from eating Chick-fil-A (which I did almost constantly back when I worked there). In fact, if it weren’t for this one manager who was a total bongo, I’d probably still be there, and still be eating.
Uhm.. losing weight doesnt make something good for you, and neither does over processing the meat, bread, and anything else that goes into the sandwiches to the point where you dont get any nutritional value out of it.
Yeah, it actually is relatively healthy. And I liked their soft-serve icecream. (So far, no other fast-foot place has been able to get that right.) However, Mike brings up a good point, it’s not worth it to support that sort of thing.
Regardless of their religious stupidity, it’s fastfood, therefore unhealthy for you.
Chick-Fil-A isn’t in Canada so I don’t have this issue. On an unrelated note, Mike is awesome.
you lucky illegitimate child.
Did you just insult my country?
As an illegitimate child myself, I am insulted by your insult.
Did they country my insult?
I do not understand your insult
I do not understand your country.
Chick-fil-a is just KFC without the yummy anyways.
And without the nausea.
GODDAMNIT MIKE.
lol he is just there to ruin everyones day isn’t he?
Bam!
It’s a bit like asking someone if they would still eat KFC if they knew the KKK owned it.
I was really confused for a second because in my family we call KFC “Kakariko Fried Cucco.”
Your family sounds cool.
Heh, my sister calls it “Kakariko Fried Cucco” as well.
{Khazam} {Firaga} {Chocobo}
For all those FFXI vets out there.
You, sir/lady/ultracar just made my day. Thanks!
Kanto Fried Combusken for me.
I tried to think of one for FF a long time ago efore FF11 came out but no memorable places from the games I played started with “K.” Afterwards I hadn’t played FF11 do yeah
Man, only in a David Willis comic would you read the sentence ‘Is your conscience gay, too?’.
and that’s why we read his comics
Geography issues hasn’t stopped you in the past, Willis — I’m fairly sure Coffee of Doom is in Greater Boston and not in the Bay Area 😉
But I can forgive that by Rule of Cool and a couple other tropes I can’t recall.
There is no Coffee of Doom in San Francisco.
There is, however, a Coffeeright Theft.
Gotta ask, is Coffeeright Theft real or your comic invention?
whaaaaa?
I think we all know that you need to open up a coffee chain now David 😉
America has so many strange theme places that it is hard to know for me to know whenever these places actually exist or not.
The name’s a pun. The shop is staffed with clones of the cast of Questionable Content.
So NO then. That answers my question.
No for now. I’m totally using that name to open a coffeeshop someday.
And I’m not paying Willis a cent!
Also Northampton is on the other side of Massachusetts from Boston.
Northampton is not even CLOSE to Greater Boston.
Didn’t you hear? According to folks most of Northern New England is considered a suburb of Boston.
It’s only a couple of hours. That’s significantly closer than San Francisco.
Coffee of Doom is in Northhampton, MA, where I live. Not the greater boston area. Sorry, just wanted my hometown’s geography right.
I actually double checked if I didn’t click shortpacked in my bookmarks when I saw this, Damn You Willis!
Same here! I wondered why there weren’t any hamsters.
We all know Ethan is gay, but is he uke or seme?
Not how gay works. That’s manga and manga only, otherwise it gets weird fast. Actually, no it’s weird there too. Plus ukes always end up really teary eyed and weepy when it comes to sex, and the semes are always really weirdly rapey. I feel like Ethan is none of these things (though the image is kind of hilarious).
Well, considering the whole “semme/uke” thing is little more than an offensive stereotype, I’m willing to bet no.
Yaoi is gay sex as girls (mostly) like to imagine it.
Bara on the otherhand, is gay sex for men by men.
Well, to be fair, in Japan those roles DO exist because sex is not nearly as free form and spontaneous. There is an active partner and a passive partner. In heterosexual sex, the active partner is always the man. In homosexual sex, there still has to be ONE active partner and ONE passive partner.
It’s actually a real thing over there, not just an arbitrary rule made up by a bunch of yaoi manga artists.
In heterosexual sex, the active partner is ALWAYS the man?
Hrn.
I think Kindra has boring sex.
Or possibly no sex.
Those are the only two explanations I can come up with.
Or she actually knows what the hell she’s talking about re: how sex goes in Japan.
Gender roles and sexuality in Japan is a fairly complicated subject, and I don’t claim to be an expert, but I’ve seen enough criticisms of yaoi portrayals of homosexual relationships versus actual gay culture in japan to be be exceptionally skeptical of anyone who presents seme/uke as rote.
Kindra was referring to the attitude or stereotype in Japan, not speaking “in general” based on personal experience. The clue is in the first sentence: “Well, to be fair, in Japan those roles DO exist because sex is not nearly as free form and spontaneous.“
Well, I still don’t think that’s quite right. Female dominant or whatever sex happens in Japan. Maybe it’s not as culturally acceptable, or it’s seen as more of a kink rather than a normal alternative, but I’m pretty sure that applies to homosexual sex in Japan too.
I don’t actually know, though.
No, you’ve got it more or less right. Traditionally, dominant or aggressive women challenge gender roles, which (traditionally speaking) is unacceptable. Ditto for homosexuality, transvestism, transgenderism, etc.
@Trae Dorn
You are trolling.
Please stop.
My kind sir, you misjudge me.
To be fair, it might explain one of the reasons Japan has such a low birth rate.
Ummm…I would say that in gay sex the active partner is always a man as well….
But what about lesbians?
However nice turn of phrase. ^_^
The fact that I know those terms offhand is really depressing.
I have a yaoi-obsessed friend to thank for that.
I know these terms as a side-effect of reading shitloads of manga and watching anime.
The answer is yes.
I KNEW IT! *snaps fingers*
damn you all of you.
I didn’t need to know about uke and seme, but I looked it up.
I feel like I did when somebody first mentioned furries to me (WTF? I’m gonna go look that up……SERIOUSLY GUYS????)
just….tmi
also it’s more of a facepalm damn you up there, not Master “This is not happy” angry face
GOOGLE: Providing you with TMI on all sorts of subjects.
Knowledge IS worth the soul rape it inflicts. ALWAYS.
I’ve missed non-graying Ethan.
Thats exactly what I thought! Now DoA can be the Ethan Time Machine….
Quick! Get in the TARDIS!
Ethan: Also known as the 12th Doctor. 😉
Yeah, I thought “Chik-Fil-A” was some rapper I’d never heard of at first, and couldn’t make the connection right away.
What can I say? Never heard of Chik-Fil-A the restaurant either. If I do happen upon one, though, I won’t bother going in.
Whoops! Replied to the wrong reply. XD Sorry.
What I MEANT to say here was, “Oh! So Ethan IS greying! I thought either my eyes were going weird or he’d always been like that and I just somehow forgot.”
*Is a moron*
And yet it’s tasty and better for you than almost any other fast food. It’s even recommended in the book “Eat This, Not That.”
Oh, the evil.
Yep. Evil. It’s owned by some Mormon folks, who take the whole not working on Sunday bit very seriously.
And also with the suppression of the gays and giving money to fight the gay marriage. Since it’s been proven that the more older brothers a guy has, the more chance he has of being born gay, and Mormons are encouraged to have large families . . . .
I suppose they are worried all the younger sons will run off and be happy together and not procreate lots with their wife they married in sooper sekret ceremony like their prophet told them too.
I was raised Mormon. They have MAJOR issues.
I eat at Chik Fil A sometimes anyway. (they have the best milkshakes in town) but I always feel guilty about it.
Not gonna lie, when I saw “sooper sekret” i immediately thought of Egyptian mormons. (because it was similar to Serket, the goddess of scorpions)
I’m gonna go imagine secret scorpion Mormon weddings now.
It isn’t really a secret. Scorpions just don’t talk about religion much, what with being scorpions and all.
S. Truett Cathy is Baptist.
Also, I love that Mike can ruin someone’s day just by stating a fact.
Obviously he’d been planning this for weeks. He probably set up Ethan to eat the Chik-Fil-A by killing a butterfly in China.
I wonder what Chinese gay guys eat when you kill butterflies in Georgia.
(…and that is the kind of phylosophical conundrum only a David-penned situation could plant in someone’s head)
That racist KFC-rip off that uses Obama as its logo (yes, it’s real).
Wait, is this true? If it is, I need to tell some people.
Sadly, it is.
Yeah. Chick-fil-A is big on what it considers Christian values. Which means stores close on Sundays, and millions are donated to hate groups.
Nothing more Christian than hating someone! After all, wasn’t it Jesus who said ‘Hate your fellow man’?
No, that sounds a bit more Old Testament.
It does sound like something Sarah would say… 😀
old testament is still canon.
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”(Luke 14:26).
But I think the consensus is he actually meant “reject as less important than me.”
If by “consensus” you mean “the consensus of people who want the Bible to mean what they like, not what it actually says,” then I give to you this other passage purportedly spoken by Jesus:
“I have come to bring fire on the Earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on Earth? No. I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” — Luke 12:49-53
Yeah, that’s right, Jesus is here to make people break the commandment “Honor thy father and mother.” This is why a common route to atheism is a careful reading of the Bible. 😉
Hey, I’m a Christian and I acknowledge the many stupid things said in the Bible. ^_~
The first step towards being a BETTER Christian is remembering that it was written by SEVERAL people who had their own memories, agendas, and interpretations of events and then put together by people who had their own agendas and cherry-picked what they wanted to include in biblical canon.
And that it’s been translated a few times.
As such, as a Christian who supports gay marriage, I recognize instead the need to explore my faith in an individualistic fashion and make my own decisions, since I’ll only know the truth when I die. Or I will simply be dead, and thus won’t much care.
Your point: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
My point: Look closely and hopefully you’ll see that it’s all bathwater.
If you can figure out what parts of the Bible to keep and which to ignore, then why use the Bible at all? I went from being a devout Christian to an atheist/agnostic/secular humanist because of the self-contradictory nonsense (see above), anti-scientific claims (young Earth creationism, exorcisms/demonic possession, geocentrism, etc.), and outright advocacy for evil behavior (gay bashing, misogyny, pro-slavery, etc.) in the Bible.
Secular humanism seems a far more rational basis for ethics than cherry-picking from poorly informed, contradictory, and superstitious ramblings from thousands of years ago.
And I say that’s great for you and am not trying to convert or preach or anything. I do not believe in young earth theories nor do I say creationism should be taught in schools. As for other aspects of the bible, including demonic possession is simply par for the course for a system of faith revolving around supernatural events and creatures. Advocacies of morally reprehensible behaviors are, again, an example of the time in which it was made and another example of why the Bible should NOT be interpreted literally nor the end all of Christianity when faith in Jesus is more important than the contradictions between the old and new testaments and how wearing two different fabric threads is somehow that important in the eyes of God. Slavery is a funny one, though, since slavery in biblical times is very different from the modern interpretations of slavery. Not saying it’s right, just saying it’s different.
And even then, I don’t get my ethics from the Bible. But whatever, not here to start an argument. I just know people who regularly enjoy Chick-Fil-A and they wouldn’t exactly be happy to learn about their higher-ups’ support of anti-gay marriage groups, myself included.
And one might also point out that they also spend a pretty sizable chunk of cash on orphanages and scholarships via the WinShape foundation.
They’re a mixed bag, but as someone who went to school with a lot of kids who only had families to live with because of Truett Cathy, I’m willing to weigh the balance of good & bad in favor of good for them.
Yeah, I don’t see how indoctrinating vulnerable orphans is a plus-point.
It’s not that Christians (as a group) hate gays, it’s that their god said it’s a sin, and they’re just trying to help people avoid Hell. It’s not like the groups they donate to use the money to buy bombs and guns after all. Instead, they buy advertisements and set up foundations that try to talk people straight. Ultimately, they are inefectual since they only people they ‘change’ are those who want to be changed; they have no power to do anything but yap like chihuahuas about their beliefs.
I AM Christian, and I don’t believe that. If god hates gay people, why would he make them? You also have to remember that the Bible’s gone nearly two millenia without an update. I don’t take a book that old at face value.
If The Bible is the word of God, then it doesn’t need an update. I don’t think God sits around thinking, “Hmm….they really seem to be into that homosexuality thing down there nowadays. I guess I’d better soften my stance on that since it’s so popular now.”
The Word is what it is and people can decide how much they want to listen to it. That’s that whole free will thing that we’re always talking about…
I wish that was true. Christian groups are behind the restricting of homosexual rights, harassment of GLBT teens, and ” Pray the gay away” camps that qualify as torture under any reasonable definition. If they don’t hate gay people, they sure look like they do.
Depends on how you read the bible. There are other interpretations, and those ones say that the statements have nothing to do with homosexuality.
Kind of. I find this statement a bit misleading. The accurate statement would be “the charitable foundation created by Chick-Fil-A’s vice-president donated $2 million to Christian groups that have participated in varying levels of anti-LGBT activities, even though that is not the stated purpose of those organizations.” Saying that Chick-Fil-A donated $2 mil to anti-gay groups makes it sound like they donated it to Americans for Truth About Homosexuality or something.
The biggest recipients were:
Marriage & Family Legacy Fund: $994,199
Fellowship Of Christian Athletes: $480,000
National Christian Foundation: $240,000
Note that I’m not excusing them, as if you are donating $994,199 to an organization, I’d think you’d look a bit closer at all of their activities, but I don’t think it’s accurate to make it out to be some big anti-gay agenda on the part of the company.
The Marriage & Family Legacy Fund was created by Chick-Fil-A’s senior vice president to finance both national and local advertisements in favor of “traditional marriage.”
Chick-Fil-A doesn’t really have to examine what that organization is. They created it. And the emergence of gay marriage is the reason it exists.
Hmmm, in that case, my bad. What I read about the foundation was that its goal was to provide counseling and such to reduce divorce rates, but that could be wrong.
It doesn’t help that their website doesn’t provide any information because all their links are broken and shoot you back to the donate page. “Donate now!”
“What to?”
“Marriage!”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Donate now!”
Well, marriage has been shown to be the leading cause of divorce, so…
OH GOD. XO I’ve eaten Chik-fil-a! Does this make me bad at being gay???
Yes. You now have turn in your gay card. All gay points earned up to eating Chik-fil-a are considered null and void, any points afterwards can be contributed to earning your new gay card.
*turns in gay card to the e-man*
See you in a week. 😉
There are Chick-Fil-As in the San Francisco Bay area. I used to eat at them.
Before…
I was going to say, I don’t know about the bay area, but they’ve been moving into Southern California over the last few years.
Yeah, there are. they’re pretty rare, like Wendy’s, but there are a few scattered about.
Aren’t any in SF proper, though, to my knowledge. Probably because of our ridiculous fast food tax (same reason we don’t have nearly as many mcdonalds’ as other cities I’ve lived in, and they’re kind of out of the way)
You use to eat them… like, the whole store?
=O
Apparently, Beachfox was VERY hungry.
Huh? *doublechecks post* No, it says “I used to eat -at- them”… The at’s there…
I still see no reason to not eat at chik-fil-a. I spent my money on a badass chicken sandwich and some waffle fries. What they want to do with that money afterwards is their business.
I take it you are unable to comprehend the notion of contributing time and/or money to a political cause you support, because there is no connection between the cause acquiring the money and them spending it on their goals?
That’s something different, though. We’re really talking about two separate financial transactions here. Seerow gives Chik-Fil-A money in exchange for a chicken sandwhich. That money goes partially to the cost of the chicken, breading, spices, etc., part to the cooking and preparing of the meal, part to the upkeep of the restaurant, and part to the proceeds of the company itself. Chik-Fil-A then takes those proceeds, and donates out of them to the hate groups, part of which goes to signs, part of which goes to
bribesCampaign contributions, etc. Really, any portion of your money could end up in the hands of the same groups because one of the people who works there believes in what they do and wants to contribute.Have to agree with this.
Except when you know a company expressly and financially supports a cause that you don’t agree with…?
There’s a difference between “I spend money at this company and that money may end up in the paychecks of some of their employees who may spend that money to support anti-gay causes,” and “I spend money at this company that, as a company, will use that money to support anti-gay causes.”
If you can avoid buying from companies that put their money toward morally reprehensible things, then more power to you. Probably harder than you realize, though.
I’m curious, where do you buy your food from? Where do you buy your clothes? Do you buy anything off of Amazon?
I’m just saying that there is a difference between buying chicken from Chik-Fil-A and donating to anti-homosexual groups yourself. And there is a difference between buying from corporations that you know donates to groups that work for causes you oppose and, well, buying from corporations that do not do that.
How about this scenario. You buy something at McDonalds. Someone gets one of your bills in change at that same McDonalds. They later buy something at Chick-Fil-A. Currency that you personally injected into the commerce system has now been used to support hate groups!
I know, I know…..I just blew everyone’s minds… =P
Great way to put it. What businesses do with their profits is really their own business. I spend money at Chik Fil A to get tasty, tasty chicken, and that’s the end of it. 🙂
Not how money works.
“The food is so good, it’ll be worth getting lynched later!”
Is your name supposed to be very appropriate here, with the “Just give your resources to these folk, there won’t be a problem,” or?
I stopped eating there for this reason. They issued an apology though.
An apology is pretty much moot if you’re going to keep engaging in the behavior you’re apologizing for.
It’s a case of “Sorry it offends you but tough-titties” rather than “Sorry, my bad, I try not to do it again, OK?” kind of sorry.
Any phrase with “Sorry, but,” in it ends up doing the exact opposite of apologising.
The other But Disease.
My college’s Gay-Straight Alliance ate at Chick-fil-A while we were at the March for Equality two years ago. Love thy enemy.
Did anybody else forget that Ethan was in Dumbing of Age?
Almost…
Same here.
Little bit…
You just know that Mike waited until Ethan had paid for his meal and got one bite in his mouth before he pounced with that little bit of trivia.
Well, of course.
He might as well eat it as he has already given them money which means that whenever he eats it or not, that money will go to wherever CFA feels like it should go.
Or maybe he thinks Ethan should be on a diet… of course he did it on purpose XD
Mike, I love you. It’s stuff like this that makes him my favorite character fromt DoA and Shortpacked!
Ah, Mike hasn’t changed much. If at all.
Go Mike
I either have to stop eating at chick-fil-a or change my core beliefs on human rights.
Tough call.
I don’t think that eating at chick-fil-a represents a violation of your core beliefs on human rights.
It’s financially supporting a group that funds bigoted acts. Now, it’s a tiny fraction of your money that would be going to getting rid of gay rights, but that’s where some of it is going. And that’s too much, IMO.
You could always just be a hypocrite.
Im suddenly quite glad I live in a state that doesn’t even know what Chick Fil A is….
I know. Anyone else mentally mispronounce it as rhyming with “Godzilla”?
I did at first, until I realized it sounded like some weird sexual thing.
Yeah, I thought “Chik-Fil-A” was some rapper I’d never heard of at first, and couldn’t make the connection right away.
What can I say? Never heard of Chik-Fil-A the restaurant either. If I do happen upon one, though, I won’t bother going in.
<..> How else WOULD you pronounce it? (Sorry, Canadian and never heard of it so I honestly don’t know.)
It’s supposed to be pronounced “chick-fill-ay'” (emphasis on the last syllable), like a chicken fillet (which is another word that isn’t pronounced the way it’s spelled).
I think I’ll call it “chick-fil’-la” from now on though, ’cause that sounds funnier. 😀
I thought it would be pronounced Chick-Filla myself whichs sounds like a nickname a guy might give his penis.
But it’s soooo good…
Eh, you already paid them for it. Might as well eat it.
I know I would. No need to waste a good chicken sandwich, they’ve already got your money anyhow.
Anything else is prioritizing “seeming” moral over any actual morality.
It’s a sandwich of evil. Tasty, tasty evil. Eat it and the darkness will infest your soul. Or, waistline. Whichever.
Oh hell. THIS. Chick-Fil-A has excellent food, but they’re also crazy fundamentalist Christians, packing all the homophobia that entails. It’s a difficult quandary, considering I’m one of the damned.
Really? Darn it. I didn’t know this. Well, never eating there again, I guess.
But.. it’s so… delicious… Also, damage is done, he already bought it. Eat the food:D
Just eat it you crybaby!
Yeah, I’m conflicted with this too. I love their food, but after learning that, I just don’t think I can eat there anymore.
I just noticed the name of the comic is “Swallow”. I bet Ethan is doing a whole lot of that aherrherrherr.
This is probably why we don’t have chick-fil-a in the uk.
Any restaurant of theirs that opens up over here would have protests outside and then masked yobs disguised as ‘protesters’ would just burn the place down as soon as this news got out. We’re more liberal that way you see…
Technically, that is a protest. It’s not a very good one, and it’s not a non-violent one, but it is a protest.
Yobs haven’t burnt down Harrods yet, and there’s an anti-fur protest outside it every week…
I figure Chik-Fil-A wouldn’t want to touch the UK, considering anyone publicly anti-gay is considered a bigoted and hateful homophobe – somewhat rightfully – and discrimination against gays is considered pretty much unacceptable (although it happens more than racism and it’s still fairly present). Forgive us if we’re too liberal like that, although I personally think it’s a good thing.
Right after old Tentpeg died.
What the hell willis why’d i get deleted?
I don’t really want to encourage people making demeaning gay jokes every time Ethan shows up. Even if they have “lol jk” after them.
Are demeaning Christian jokes okay?
Not that I’ve really seen any, or at least none that I can recall off the top of my head. So… I’m just curious.
I refuse to answer that based on your premise that the two situations are comparable. It’s the same difference between being a Packers fan and being left-handed. One of these things is choosing which team to root for and the other is a harmless circumstance of our birth.
Wait… my brother is a Packers fan and left handed. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT HIM!?!
So, in other words, yes.
Nice to know.
No, not “in other words, yes.” You first have to ask me a question based on a premise that I don’t reject. We also have to agree on what “demeaning” means. There are too many variables here, and too much false equivalency.
Or you could just answer the question along with explaining that it’s not the same thing in your opinion.
Look, it doesn’t bother me if you’re ok with it. I was just curious.
aslong as all gay jokes get deleted i have no issue with this. Thank you for the answer
I deleted more than yours, yes.
And they were all just dirty jokes about sodomy and/or fellatio, for the record. I just kind of wish that didn’t have to be the go-to whenever a gay dude popped up on our screens. I mean, sure, in moderation, yes, fine, whatever, but there was a whole fleet of them.
It just made me feel uncomfortable.
You also named the strip “Swallow”. That’s not exactly hard to turn into a joke.
Spit or swallow, the eternal dilemma…
You forgot gargle.
So THAT’S how they make their chicken nuggets taste so good.
They’re EVIL.
I can just picture it now: Mike will wait for Ethan to have waited hours in line for the Black Friday sale at Target, and at a minute before opening, let him know that they’ve also donated money to politicians who are anti-gay and anti-choice
I’ve never heard of an anti-choice politician… or anything, really.
Might you be using a buzzword disguising a meaning that is *slightly* different from what you actually said to make it look worse?
Wait, do people wait in line for the *opening*? What’s the point of that?
Pat, people who believe abortion should be legal generally describe themselves as “pro-choice” while people who believe it should be illegal describe themselves as “pro-life.” Once the latter group started describing the former as “anti-life” the former naturally turned the rhetorical trick around and called opponents of abortion “anti-choice.”
That so many pro-lifers (and I am not saying you’re one of them, but I’ve met quite a few) get offended at being called “anti-choice” after they’ve calle their opponents “anti-life” shows what hypocritical crap-sacks they are. The notion of being treated as they treat others appalls them.
And by the way, the term “anti-choice” is quite literally accurate, since they want to strip women of the choice on whether to abort or carry to term. If an abortion opponent wants to argue that women shouldn’t have that choice, there are fora where they can make their case, but if they advocate eliminating that choice out of one side of their mouths while denying the accuracy of the label out of the other, they can bite me.
Oh my god, you guys, please don’t start an abortion fight.
It’s awful, but I imagined people throwing around fetuses.
Oh dear.
I was thinking more of the lines of attacking each other with GIANT COATHANGERS.
Your not the only one.
Haha, sounds like a bunch of people whooping each other using fetuses as morning stars.
Haha, I was picturing spomething like a food fight myself.
Only with fetuses.
I’ve obviously been hanging around Mike too much…
Ugh… I laughed at this out loud.
Now I feel dirty.
I remember hearing about that. Sigh… A local movie theater here in SF did the same thing. It sucks when something you enjoy is working against you like that.
And damn, its been a while since Mike has done something like this in the DoA universe. I was missing it.
Just substitute In-N-Out Burger. Same politics. In-N-Out even prints scripture on its packaging.
I’ve been lucky enough to never have In-N-Out before, and I never will because of this very reason.
Chick-Fil-A, on the other hand, already has my taste buds in their grip of doom. Plus, the one I go to is run by a lesbian manager and bi assistant manager, and I met my ex-boyfriend when I was working there, so despite the fact that *some* of the money goes to anti-gay groups, I like to think I’m helping pay the wages of the awesome homosexual Christian people who work there.
Scripture on the packaging isn’t the same as promoting hate….
Ideally, they’d react like matter and anti-matter, since they *really should*.
In-N-Out too?
…dammit.
I never saw scripture on my packaging though…
Wait, what? I lived in California for 27 years, and routinely ate In-N-Out for at least the latter ten of those years, and I NEVER saw scripture on anything they handed me.
It’s really tiny. Usually something like John 3:16 printed on the underside of the cup. You don’t notice it till someone points it out.
No, no, NO! Don’t ruin In-N-Out Burger for me too! D:
Now my gay conscience is forcing me to google search for more information…
Meh. I don’t care about the political stance of anything I watch/eat/do. That’s pretty immaterial to me.
There are some things that I can not see as “just politics”.
Bigotry is that some things.
Despite that interesting fun fact I still plan on eating me some their chicken. it’s good.
Man, I have the same type of problem with the Salvation Army; I’m too fricken poor to buy new clothes and they’re the only secondhand place anywhere near me, but I hate myself for giving more money to and organization that I know is prejudiced against me (though at least I can take comfort in the money going on to help people who need it more than I do).
Thank Eirene for Goodwill.
If there’s something like this for Five Guys or Chipotle, NOBODY say anything. 😐
Chipotle gives money to CARLOS MENCIA!!!!!
(no, not really)
(but that’d be awful, wouldn’t it?)
Yes, yes it would.
David, that joke is brilliant. How long until Carlos steals it?
😉
Well, somebody needs to. When was the last time the man worked?
It’s sad but true: evil tastes good.
Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb.
Evil will OFTEN triumph over good so good looks EPIC whenever it wins. Good’s sly like that.
Yay Spaceballs reference.
I read that in the lord helmet voice…
Ethan, you already paid for it. Better to finish your meal and not let it go to waste, next time you will know better.
Really. So many people willing to compromise their values for a fast food sandwich. Seriously. I mean, if you’re ambivalent about gay rights, or don’t support them, then whatever, but if you’re pro gay rights it should take more then some processed chicken and waffle fries to get you to hand your money over to a corporation that donates funds to hate groups.
But it’s just sooooo good!
Perhaps they drug their food, or so something else similarly shady. It would mesh well with what we know of their moral values.
Now I’m reminded of how much I miss Chick-Fil-A. I haven’t eaten there in a year for this very reason. Damn, I want a spicy chicken wrap. But I will hold strong, no matter how delicious their food is.
OOOH! We should get that “Top Secret Recipes” show to suss out what makes Chik-Fil-A so tasty. That way we could make our own knockoffs like we can with Bloomin’ Onions and Dippin’ Dots!
Mike will do the socially conscious thing as long as it’s sufficiently obnoxious.
He may actually have a career as a reformer — you can be INCREDIBLY irritating by telling people to do the right thing.
I was incredibly disheartened when I learned this as well.
Additionally, I believe I’ve heard Netflix is also guilty of this (though I may be wrong).
Don’t tell me that. I need my Netflix.
Also, a lot of the organizations that promote big business also promote anti-gay legislation, so sometimes businesses donate to those and then have to deal with the backlash from the rest of it (see: Target).
Ah, yes, the ethical tasty food delima.
In the very little research published onthe subject, it is thought that cephalopods may be highly intelligent. But they also taste really good. …I have decided to go with the known tasty qualities.
Cephalopods ARE highly intelligent. I had a friend who had a pet octopus and that thing was a clever little fucker. More so than a cat or dog. Actually made me stop eating cephalopods for like a year…
but then tastiness defeated my conscience.
Ah yes, “Reapers”…
Whenever starts off a reply with “Ah, yes,” that is ALL I can hear.
Also, what about the horrifying conditions the chickens they get their meat from endure? At some point you need to either just become a vegetarian/animal rights activist or just not give a shit.
And Ethan should realize that he’s already given them his money.
Vegetarians harm as many more creatures with their diets as meat-eaters do.
Oh, for the love of Pete, why would he care? Just finish your meal, then never buy from them again! He didn’t know when he bought the food and he’s hungry! The end!
If you found out that Hasbro Toys supported NAMBLA, would you still buy Transformer toys from them?
That’s…that’s not true, is it? Why are corporations so eeeeviiiilllll? O_O
If Hasbro supported NAMBLA, David would immediately crawl into a corner and attempt to die.
You think that’s a crazy out-there hypothetical, but I submit to you Takara’s “Transformers: Kiss Players”: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Kiss_Players_issue_1
i still think intent has a lot to do with it. it’s one thing if they donated money solely because the groups were anti-gay and they wanted to support this. i doubt that’s what happened. i also read somewhere else that for some of these groups they did as little as provided food.
Their VP founded one of the groups. I think the intent is pretty clear.
They give money, voluntarily, to groups that exist to oppose gay rights. That’s not an area with a lot of interpretation.
Apparently it’s real important to them that Ethan fill-a-chick
To eat the sandwich of hate and tastiness or not to eat the sandwich of hate and tastiness, that is not the question.
Take the food you have only eaten one bite from and ask for a refund.
Most fast food managers will give in and give you a refund and they can’t resell the food.
After reading the comments I almost want to ask for a list of all the companies that supports anti-LGBT rights, just so I can avoid them forever D=
whoa, wtf “supports anti-LGBT rights”
don’t notice, guys. I’m tired and hungry xD I don’t even know what I wanted to say anymore
Nono, I’m pretty sure that’s right. 🙂 “LGBT rights” is good. Being “anti-LGBT rights” is bad. So is supporting it. *Thumbs up*
And yeah, a comprehensive list would be most helpful!
Say what you will about Mike, but he’s a WELL-RESEARCHED asshole. Imagine all the articles he reads daily just to be prepared for instances such as these. He’s like a Douchebag Batman.
Just when I forgot about that can of worms…
Ah well. I’ll just close it back up and take it for fishing in the spring…
“I refuse to answer that based on your premise that the two situations are comparable.” – I don’t think you know what “comparable” means. You made a joke attacking Chick-fil-a while simultaneously mocking gays. So how is a gay joke not comparable? And it is a little odd to say anti-gay marriage equals hate. Marriage isn’t a right, and even the most “gay friendly” of societies – Ancient Greece and Medieval Japan – still had marriage as between a man and a woman because it was about reproduction and legitimacy of children. To then let a bunch of people make nasty attacks on Christians which are still a majority of the country and a majority of your readers doesn’t make any sense. Very few of your readers are actually liberal, which was pointed out before. Perhaps you want to alienate your fan base?
I am actually pretty fine alienating people who are against the most basic of civil rights because of the circumstances of birth. You don’t see me courting the KKK, do you? Same thing exactly.
The majority of Americans profess to be Christian. The majority of Americans also profess to be pro-gay marriage. Clearly you can be Christian and be for gay marriage. In fact, they might just outnumber those who don’t. So I feel pretty secure in my decision to be a decent human being.
No, David! Nooooo! Don’t alienate your right-wing nutjob fanbase! They pay you so much money to read your free webcomic!!
–Wait.
LOGIC. IT WORKS, bongoES.
Here here, David.
High five, DW
I think my husband would argue that you -can- be Christian (Even a priest) and still be for gay marriage.
Heck, he’s prime evidence that you can be Christian -and- be gay -and- be married to another man, and still believe that Jesus was God made flesh, here to preach about charity, love, and the rise of the powerless over tyrants.
I’m sorry if my ability to file a joint tax return in the state of California offends you, but it’s not -my- fault that you decided to get all bent out of shape about it.
But the Bible says the gay is bad! It says so in LEVITICUS! Which all Christians everywhere obey in its entirety, rather than ignoring unless it gives them an excuse to hate someone.
If you really want to stop supporting companies that are doing or have done evil, you’re pretty much going to have to get into a grass shack and grow your own food… Just as a start, you have IBM, Dole, Chiquita, and many more. I’m sure you can find a lot more that have done evil in the name of profits.
http://www.cracked.com/article_15767_third-reich-to-fortune-500-five-popular-brands-nazis-gave-us.html
http://www.cracked.com/article_15967_the-awful-truth-behind-5-items-probably-your-grocery-list.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#Humanitarian_disaster
+ Amazon, Walmart, Iams, Coca-Cola, Nestle…
There’s a difference between evil for the sake of profits and evil for the sake of evil. Donating to hate groups is the latter.
Uh, no, there really isn’t. Evil that is inspired by greed and evil inspired by hate are still both evil.
Basic of civil rights? David, marriage is not a right. It never was a right. “Civil rights” are things determined by society to form the operation of society, i.e. voting, owning property, etc., so even if marriage was a “right” it wouldn’t be a civil one. And your comparing someone who is against gay marriage to the KKK is really off base. You might as well call Chick-Fil-A Nazis. You basically destroyed any argument you could have made. Green Peace kills actual people, as do other groups. The SPCA/human society single handedly kills more animals than everyone else in the US combined. Do you know how many businesses support them? And you are upset that Christians want the original definition of marriage that has existed since the beginning of civilization to be upheld is somehow the end of the world?
Actually, the Supreme Court has already defined marriage as a “basic civil right of man,” in Virginia v. Loving. So in America, it is already a basic civil right.
That last sentence doesn’t make any sense unless you are really into the idea of marriage being a property transaction? Marriage has evolved over time.
That isn’t true at all, dog. It determined that marriage fell under the “equal protection clause” which has nothing to do with “civil rights” but “due process” and regarded people of differing ethnicities while still allowing bans on other things, such as banning incest. The Supreme Court made it rather clear that it was narrowly defined to race because they did not want to allow for incest based on the fact that marriage primarily deals with reproduction.
“These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.
Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). See also Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888). To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.” – Chief Justice Warren in the opinion of the Court.
But okay. Yes, Loving v. Virginia very specifically dealt with interracial marriages because that is how the law works — the suit was about interracial marriages, and discriminatory laws are illegal under due process because…they don’t afford different groups equal standing under the law. I don’t know how you think this isn’t related to civil rights, though, unless you find the Civil Rights Movement to be misnamed.
ANYWAY, Loving v. Virginia ended up not turning over other laws prohibiting certain marriages, partially because since many of those laws were upheld by Bowers v. Hardwick. It’s not because marriage primarily deals with reproduction, though — Bowers upheld laws based on _morality_, and was subsequently overturned in Lawrence v. Texas anyway.
But thanks for bringing up incest!
The history of marriage is varied and murky. There is no “original definition of marriage” that we know about. Some cultures arranged couples one way, others did another way, and it was often for a variety of economical or political reasons. Women were often property to be bartered between warlords.
I mean, c’mon, you know how Isaac got his first wife? Abraham sent a servant to go pick out one of his cousins at random. That’s not exactly “When Harry Met Sally.”
“There is no “original definition of marriage” that we know about” Not true at all. We have access to laws of various cultures as recorded, and most have very specific statements about legitimacy, the rights of the husband, inheritance, etc. We even have Hamarabi’s language regarding that. And if you knew anything about Hebrew tradition, you wouldn’t say “women were often property” – instead, they were the ones who determined tribal legitimacy. Judiasm, as most ancient cultures, were matriarchal because it was impossible to truly say who the father was (hence legitimacy was important).
Yes, we have access to recorded laws. Those laws go back thousands of years.
But humanity is hundreds of thousands of years old.
We do not know the original definition of marriage.
Marriage existed with society. Not before society. Marriage is a legal contract that recognizes consanguinity, which is the unification and separation of bloodlines. That is how “heirs” were determined and how illegitimate children were kept out of inheritance. That is why homosexual couples in Greece and Japan still married women and had children with them.
When and where did society precisely start? You know, so we know where to look for the records of the First Marriage, as such a document obviously exists.
Society proper has many stated origins – some say Ancient Greece, others Hammurabi. Mostly, it is based around works that describe codified laws, bureaucratic systems, attempts at literature and currency, etc.
Aside from the bullshit vagueness of trying to pick a proper origin of society (ancient Greece? Hell no. That’s waaaaaaaay too modern), you’re also going off of the idea that marriage has a single origin- which is totally false. It’s arisen separately in different cultures over time.
Precisely what do you mean by “society”? Because I suspect you’re using it in a different way from the way way *I* would use it.
“Society” pre-dates written records by a significant margin. So saying that “Marriage existed with society. Not before society” is so completely ridiculous that I can’t even. Dude.
…Unless, perchance, you are defining “Marriage” as “a union between one man and one woman performed and authorized by a Christian priest of Jehovah”? In which case, I assume that you consider marriages sanctified by Allah or Shivah or Budda or Thor or The Great Spirit or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whoever to be not real “marriages” at all, and therefore invalid? Come now, let’s have actual, precise definitions of the terms we use so we can compare apples to apples.
See, me, I would define marriage as “a state-sanctioned exclusive sexual union assumed to be more or less permanent unless a follow-up ritual is performed, joining two unrelated, un-currently-married, mentally-competent adults in a permanent relationship with overtones of co-ownership of joint offspring and material possessions acquired by the couple during the timeline of the union.” So, see, by my definition, which is also basically the same one used by my government here in Canada, there is absolutely no reason beyond unbelievable douchery to forbid two single, competent, unrelated adults from getting “married” based solely on gender, any more than one would forbid it on race, or economic background, or educational level, or hair colour, or ethnicity, or anything else.
So, please, what specifically is your definition of marriage? And can you accept that the term is used by more than just Christians, and that we may not be meaning “a church-sanctioned exclusive holy union between one man and one woman performed by a Christian priest”? And that, therefore, arguing against “gay marriage” in the context of the larger society of your country, rather than simply as something which your specific religion forbids its FOLLOWERS, is infringing upon the rights of others who may not actually FOLLOW your religion?
Or do I need to start passing laws against eating pork? And banning Communion wine as being an affront to Allah? Because it’s the SAME THING.
Actually, same-sex marriage existed both in ancient China and Rome (albeit it wasn’t very common). That it existed in China is a particularly glaring counter to your argument, as China is one of the oldest civilizations known to historians.
Erm… Marriage was, for a good chunk of human history, a property deal. The wife being the property, of course, exchanged for money or food or other valuables. You’ll notice that in our part of the world, that’s no longer the case. So by your logic, that means that marriage is either a civil right, or the definition of marriage has undergone many changes in the history of our planet and it’s silly to try to protect its “sanctity” based on its stability as an institution. Or, you know, both.
“Marriage was, for a good chunk of human history, a property deal” Not at all. If anything, most marriage laws were created to protect the rights of the woman – many spousal abuse laws in ancient customs, denying any other women who had illegitimate children from having any legal right to inheritance, etc. Marriage laws were mostly to protect the woman and the woman’s heirs.
Marriage was a way to acquire or consolidate wealth and land between families. I’m not saying that’s all it was, but that was one of its purposes. That’s a property deal. The bride (and often the groom) often had no say in who they married. If marriage hadn’t undergone a much-needed redefinition, I might not have had the right to choose my own husband. Unless you exchanged a few goats and a sheaf of wheat for your spouse, you’ve probably benefited from that redefinition too. You’re also legally allowed to leave or divorce them if you’d like! Without getting stoned to death or anything! It’s a brave new world, Hmm.
–Are –Are you serious?
Sooo… the laws that were overturned only like ONE CENTURY AGO IN THE WESTERN WORLD saying that a woman’s property automatically became the property of her husband as soon as she married, for him to do with as he pleased, and with her having no say whatsoever; or the laws that said that a man had total control over his wife to the point that he could have her have a clitorectomy, a hysterectomy, or even have her committed, solely on his say-so and completely against her will; or the one that said that children were exclusively the property of the man and that a wife was kidnapping them if she took them away from him, even in an abusive situation– these were designed for the protection of women?!!?
Okay, you’re either a troll or so completely clueless that you don’t get to play with the big kids anymore. Go sit at the children’s table. The adults are trying to have a conversation over here. No, you can’t stay and listen. You wouldn’t understand what we’re talking about anyways.
And you are upset that Christians want the original definition of marriage that has existed since the beginning of civilization
You mean polygamy? Unlike gay marriage, it was actually sanctioned in the Old Testament.
Polygamy was not “sanctioned” in so much as it became necessary in some tribal cultures that emphasized herding animals. It is also only in the Bible pre-law and has interesting twists (such as wanting to marry a younger daughter but custom forced the older daughter to have to be married off first).
….”only in the bible pre-law”? Pre-WHAT-law? Law predates the bible, as does polygamy. By a really, really long time.
Okay, here’s where my back gets put right up. I am not a Christan. Do you see Jew protesting outside supermarkets that sell pork products? Or Moslems demonstrating against liquor stores? No? Then how about this: Decide that, WITHIN YOUR RELIGION, you don’t support gay marriage and refuse to sanctify it by performing gay marriages within your church. And then stop telling the rest of us how to live our goddamned lives according to YOUR religion when we’re not even part of it!!
It’s called the Separation of Church and State, and it’s a DAMNED GOOD IDEA. And if your ONLY argument supporting het-only marriages is that it’s all about reproduction and the legitimacy of children, then you’d BETTER start having laws passed that require fertility tests for everyone about to be married, ban anyone infertile or post-menopausal from being married, and outlaw orphanages.
Otherwise, STFU and GTFO.
Also, to say “Christians want the original definition of marriage that has existed since the beginning of civilization” with a straight face is to show an astounding ignorance about history, culture, anthropology, and basically everything in general.
YOU GUYS have decided that the term “marriage” denotes “One man + one woman” and really recently, so far as the existence of humanity and culture goes. It’s a common Western concept only because Christians thought that converting entire countries by force and slaughtering anyone who refused to convert was a really good idea.
I strongly suggest you take a decent course on anthropology from a reputable, NON-CHRISTIAN university, and listen to the FACTS with an open mind. Here’s one way you can tell if it’s a reputable course/university: If anyone mentions Intelligent Design as a plausible theory, or discounts “Darwinism” or evolution on the basis that it’s “just a theory”, or thinks that the age of the earth can be measured in millennia– run.
To be fair, the age of the earth CAN be measured in millennia, it’s lots and lots and lots more than four or five.
Lol, true. But then, my age can be measured in seconds. But it’d be stupid to do it. 😉
Aw, you know what I mean. But yeah. Should have phrased that better.
Wanna know the part about that whole “The earth is only six thousand years old!” thing that cracks me up the most? That calculation was done about a thousand years ago. XD And yet it’s STILL only six thousand years old.
Guess I’m still, hmm, say twenty-seven then? Yeah, let’s stop counting there. That was a good year. 😉
How do you know how many of his viewers are liberal? Most webcomic readers in general are young people, most of them relatively progressive. I do not see how a social conservative could even enjoy DOA.
Plus, please do not compare sexuality to religious ideology. One is a conscious choice and the other (most of us would agree) is not!
Also, how is it relevant that the majority of the U.S. is Christian? Is it better to offend a minority than a majority? I don’t understand your logic.
Besides a few characters, most of the characters David creates are rather conservative leaning and other webcomics have poked fun of his general tone. Even when he depicts gay characters, it is like the above comic in which he makes the gay character appear absolutely ridiculous. I’m surprised that no one has pointed out the actual homophobic nature of this comic, but it isn’t surprising because, as I said, very little of his audience is liberal and even fewer are homosexual. But that is another point – David doesn’t realize that yes, there are gay people who are against gay marriage. He has a stereotype of homosexuality, and it is a bad caricature. Try changing the comic to having a flannel wearing hunter about to use his new iPad and someone come up and say “You know, Apple donated to Obama”. It would make even more sense yet still be completely stupid and unrealistic.
You sure like to make up the demographics of my comic as they suit you.
Joel Watson sure made a big deal about it, as did many others. Try doing a poll sometime. Have you never bothered to see what webcomic forums say about you? You aren’t Questional Content or any other standard “liberal” comic, and quite far from it. I find it interesting how you are appalled by the obvious. Are you shocked too that Transformers has always been deemed quite conservative and that both the recent backers of it and of the original cartoon were conservative?
No, I change my original assertion. You just make ANYTHING up as it suits you.
Woooow you have a stick up your ass. It was a joke. In a webcomic. Holy crap.
I’m not the one with a stick up my ass. I thought the original comic was amusing. Then David used the comments to start attacking Christians and comparing them to the KKK. Really off the wall.
Just scanned the comments, the KKK comparision didn’t come up until he responded to you, and I didn’t see any Christian jokes before that either. (The left-handed thing doesn’t count, it was a similie not a joke and the worst implication in it was that it was a “harmless circumstance of our birth.” Hardly insulting stuff.)
No, actually, it was you who conflated “Christian” with “Anti-Gay,” at least in this particular conversation.
Stop trying to conflate bigotry with Christianity.
I can’t even tell from your context what “it” I supposedly “made a big deal about” but I do not appreciate you throwing my name around when troll bating one of my friends. David portrays homosexuals accurately because he portrays them as people. Just regular people. Flaws, issues, varying degrees of intelligence and emotional maturity. Ya know, just like everyone else. And despite your exhaustive market research and independent polling, I assure you that David has as large of a gay following as any other comic that portrays a homosexual without making them a ridiculous stereotype. I mean, Ive only say next to him at con after con as he talks to his readers (gay and straight alike), but what do I know?
PS
Show me ONE (just one) homosexual AGAINST equal rights for gays and I will show you… nothing. Because you can’t find that one guy. It’s never going to happen.
http://nogaymarriage.wordpress.com/
It is kinda odd to assume that all gay people are the same. Log Cabin Republicans and Libertarian Homosexuals have been rather outwardly against gay marriage over the past decade.
Good crikey, go see a shrink already.
Willis’s comics are homophobic because all of his gay characters are ridiculous? You may as well call them heterophobic as well, because–in case you haven’t noticed–almost every character he creates is a total nutjob. Both Walkys have the maturity of a seven-year-old, SP!Jacob’s got the sex-addiction thing, Joe is a nympho, Sal leaps through windows, Billie is an alcoholic, and guess what? All of them are straight. (Mostly.) Ethan, Leslie, Malaya and so forth are ridiculousness, but their sexuality is almost entirely unrelated to that. (Since when is being a toy collector a gay stereotype?)
His gay character isn’t homophobic because it is ridiculous but because it is a bad stereotype and one about his homosexuality. It amounts to “you can’t eat that because you are gay”. Then it is compounded by saying a conscience, i.e. a moral thought process, would be gay. It transitions from an act of sexuality to something that amounts to middle school attacks.
So, he’s a gay stereotype because he has qualms about funding an organization that funds organizations that want him to not be able to marry?
Also, considering a good deal of Mike’s dialogue is mom-fucking jokes, you’re not far from the mark with the “something that amounts to middle school attacks” comment. That’s sort of the point. And I don’t see how someone who is, as far as we know, not gay, making a comment at the expense of a gay character turns said gay character into a stereotype.
The problem’s not that he’s homophobic of himself…that’d be weird.
The place selling him the food would, if they KNEW he was gay, refuse him food. Despite being glad to pay for the privilege to eat their chicken.
…are the cogs in your brain turning yet, or do they need some grease to get working?
They wouldn’t refuse him food. They just use the money he gives him to fight his civil rights.
I’m not sure you understood the joke as well as you think you do.
Well, if nobody else is going to, I’m going to have to call “Troll.”
Your mother transitioned from an act of sexuality to middle school attacks. For a nickel.
^AWESOME
This DOA was forwarded to me from one of my best gay friends (he beat me to reading it) saying he & his boyfriend were morally straight as they still love Chick-fill-a & honestly DOA & Shortpacked us one of their favorite web comics. So homophonic? Not unless you want to start calling my friends “self-hating gays” which strong how you’ve defended your arguments so far, you just might
Gay people are against gay marriage.
…Riiiiight, I’ll get back to you when I find one that is.
I knew one who was. He was worried that, if gay marriage was legal, he’d be expected to commit and settle down.
Gay people can be selfish pricks, like anyone else.
Of course there are gay people against gay marriage. Ever heard of Republican Congressmen?
I like how you have somehow divined the societal and political leanings of all Mr. Willis’s readership. If I had powers like that, I wouldn’t be wasting them on internet comments. Maybe you should go into politics.
He would render poll-taking obsolete overnight.
Right? I’m saying. So much potential.
Right, because what we really, really need is another nutjob in politics.
I was wondering, how does one know if they are part of the silent majority? Do they get a certificate in the mail or something?
I fall under the LGBT umbrella. I support gay marriage. I am usually very liberal in most regards. I am in the military. I am married. I am middle-aged. I have kids. I am not a Christian. I am not an American.
I read Shortpacked and Dumbing of Age and the others and I enjoy the hell out of them. I find them well-written, intelligent, and entertaining.
When the site starts collecting and publishing stats on the gender, alignment (Lawful Good, since you ask), religion, age, and country of origin of the readers, then you are allowed to make broad generalizations on the composition of his readers.
Until then you’re just pulling numbers out of your ass and we all know it.
Incidentally, could you please explain to me how and were, precisely, in detail, this comic in ANY WAY mocks gays? Or any other group? Because I don’t see it and I think it’s just you.
Okay, I definitely want to see a poll figuring out the alignment of Willis’ readership now.
According to Google Analytics, out of all the cities in Texas, I have the most readers in Austin.
I feel that’s diagnostic.
And since the previous poll was super old, we have a new one. Enjoy its delicious info!
As a gay guy, can I just say that you seem to have a very warped idea of how gay people view David’s characters and comic.
Right now I would like to ask “Hmm” a few thing. One, (to settle my unbridled curiousity) who the fuck are you and why do you profess to know so much? Two, are you so fucking unromantic that you think marriage is still only about procreation? Three, by that logic, do you think infertile couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married? (I recognize that is a straw man argument or, at least, hope it is.) Thirdly (that’s a word, right), why does Willis have to conform to what you deem to be his audience? Also, if he think that segment of his audience is WRONG does he a.) not have the right to think so and b.) does he not have the right to think so in his webcomic? And finally, if this is a matter of what’s tradition and not hate, why does feel as though I’m hated?
BTW I only hate in self-defense, and when I do, I will at least have the decency to admit to you (and myself) that that’s how I feel.
Good points all. I’d add, “If Willis is okay with alienating a bunch of right-wing homophones and they leave in droves, how is that a problem?”
Hahaha, right-wing homophones.
You know.
Like “Boehner.”
Haha whoops! XD That’s what I get for posting almost four hours after my bedtime.
Hey, at least I was otherwise coherent, eh? XD
“Boehner.” LOL
You know what I’ve found?
There’s no way to change a person’s opinion when it’s based on ideology. I’ll like to a good SMBC comic about that. Hang on, lemme find it…
My word, that took a long time. Well, here it is: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2307#comic
That’s pretty much how it goes~ I guess you’ll have to copy+paste it to your browser.
Yeah, Zach Weiner knows how it goes~
Or not. It made it a link! Yay for first-time posting here!
(I love your webcomics Willis, BTW :P)
I love how he just says “no that’s not true” after every fact that’s presented to him (I’m assuming it’s a “him”) and then basically rephrases what the other person said anyway…it’s astounding.
It marriage today was what it used to be, then women would be sold off like property and have no say in anything. They would be little more than sex slaves and always have to obey the husband.
see also “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
I think this might be an interesting route to explore Mike/Ethan as a possibility since you went Mike/Amber in Shortpacked. 😛
😀
X3 X3 X3
*punches Mike in the face*That’s the one of the two characterd in this series currently :/ Now for the redhead
I just now realized that Chick Fil-a is a real restaurant. o.o
Chik-fil-A is also involved with some of the creepy dominionist stuff that’s going on in the states. Don’t know what dominionism is? It’s a far-right movement to turn the US into a theocracy. Not a conspiracy or a cult mind you, just a lot of fundamentalists who genuinely believe that all government should be run according to their interpretation of the christian bible. See also: Quiverfull, the Republican party.
No for now. I’m totally using that name to open a coffeeshop someday.
And I’m not paying Willis a cent!
Goddamn it. I hit reply. Now this makes no sense. Sal is displeased.
I’m Christan and quite frankly I don’t hate Gay people God gave us free will for a reason.
Actually, there is a Chick-Fil-A in Fairfield, which is about an hour from San Francisco. As someone that lives an hour from San Francisco and makes regular trips there to get food and waste time, I can definitely say that someone from San Francisco would totally go to Fairfield for Chick-Fil-A. (I went further for Sonic when the first drivable distance location opened)
I am happy that I don’t have to do this battle anymore because I live in England now. The food was so damn good, the antigayness so damn bad. although, as someone pointed out, individual franchises sometimes would rebel. I knew a gay friend who actually worked at one. So confusing!
That last bite will be bitter.
Chik-Fil-A supports traditional marriage, Ben and Jerry’s supports many left wing and liberal causes. Nobody says anything about them. Pick and chose your agenda.
Chick-Fil-A supports selling your daughters to the patriarchs of rival tribes to solidify land deals????
ah, and there we go. mike was almost nice in his last apearance. the world has been apeased
Mike’s a dick, man. He’s just an intrusive asshole. I guess people find his rudeness so outrageous it’s funny, but to me, he’s not funny, he’s just outrageously rude. Don’t know about other Mikes of Willis’s universe, but this one is completely and irredeemably contemptible.
In, uh… my opinion, of course.
Eh, Chik-Fil-A is still awesome, its not what the owner does, its how the food is prepared and how they servers act, in my opinion…
Chik-Fil-A has a much higher standard for employees then other fastfood joints.
Restaurant franchises are donating to Salvation Army too now?
Conflicted he is
See, if we could just put all government funding into making everyone both genders, this issue wouldn’t even exist.
FINALLY
but i guess you’re still gonna have it pop up through the comic, aren’t you?
-____-