Continued from "Does Chik-fil-A's Dan Cathy care about your boycott threats?" at WSATA

African-Americans did not have the privilege of boycotting privately-owned businesses whose owners subscribed to segregation; those businesses didn't serve them in the first place and didn't want to either, so it didn't matter, and black activists didn't waste their breath threatening these business owners with boycotts either.

Boycotts worked for the public bus system, but when it came time to challenge non-government cogs in the system, such as Woolworth lunch counters, black activists did not declare boycotts, they declared sit-ins instead. That was not a strategy of avoidance but one of occupation.

I'm talking about history here, not so-called Civil Rights boycotts that came later such as the Imus boycott. The Imus boycott, by the way, only worked because Imus counted among his audience listeners who would tune-out due to his nappy-headed-hos insult. Rush Limbaugh's said far worse, but has a boycott ever taken him off the air? No. Think about why.

Forgive me, here. The Imus and Limbaugh examples are faulty. Dan Cathy is not a talk show host. He is not on the airwaves each day trying to sway public opinion about gay marriage or anything else. If the Baptist Press had not asked him that question, no one would be discussing him right now. And let's face it, most of the people outraged by his response don't read commentary and stories distributed by the Baptist Press anyway.

Will it matter if gay people and their supporters stop eating at Chik-fil-A? Would it matter if they staged sit-ins at Chik-fil-A restaurants?  Either of these strategies would work to accomplish something, but what that something is should be scrutinized. When does a movement look more like a bullying mob?

What I'm saying here is this: If gay people and their supporters stop going to Chik-fil-A, Chik-fil-A may lose some money, may even have to close some of its restaurants, may even be prevented from building new restaurants in some areas, but will that change anything? Maybe. Perhaps some other business owners will be too afraid to share their opinions on political issues, ever. Is that the desired result?

What about business owners who favor gay marriage in areas that are strongly anti-gay; should these business owners speak up or shut up?

Here is what Cathy told the Baptist Press:

Some have opposed the company's support of the traditional family. "Well, guilty as charged," said Cathy when asked about the company's position.

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.

"We operate as a family business ... our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that," Cathy emphasized.

"We intend to stay the course," he said. "We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles."

Freedom of Religion = Freedom of Thought?

Chik-fil-A is not a public bus system. Chik-fil-A is not even a Woolworth lunch counter. It is open to the public and, to my knowledge, has not refused to serve anyone based on race, religion, or sexual orientation. So, what do gay people hope to do here, regulate Cathy's thoughts and speech even when he speaks to religious organizations? 

Are gay rights activists ready to direct energy at challenging the Christian Church, which means it will lose some of the energy it needs to get governments to approve gay marriage? In the Christian community, that's how making Dan Cathy a target will be perceived, that gay activists are attacking religion.

Anyway, barring some kind of Road to Damascus experience, Dan Cathy will not change his mind (God vs. Mammon and all that). He made his stand years ago. He makes it every Sunday when he closes his restaurants. And the United States Constitution upholds his right to do so because the United States Constitution supports Freedom of Religion.

So, to my gay activists friends I say deal with that; deal with that the same way African Americans learned to deal with the likes of Bob Jones University (which up until 2000 still taught that interracial dating was a sin) and to deal with some fundamentalist Christian Churches that still teach God cursed Ham (black people).

Sometimes people don't agree with you, will never agree with you, and will always undermine your right to be you, and all you can do is keep walking, keep moving forward, and let it go. Otherwise you become like the person who seems to be persecuting you: you become the one who seeks to silence the other.

Whew! I'm so glad I don't have to make a life-changing decision here. I've never liked Chik-fil-A's food, so, technically, I can't boycott the restaurant. My refusal to eat there would mean nothing, and nothing from nothing leaves zilch. But if you've been chowing down on those waffle fries and think what Cathy said is hateful, then the next time you see that Chik-fil-A cow, roll your eyes, and do what you've got to do.

CNN's list of 10 religious (not necessarily Christian) companies.