The OCD Diaries

August 17, 2012

Exeter Hospital: Stop Making Excuses and Test Employees for Hepatitis C

An open letter to New Hampshire’s Exeter Hospital.

To Whom It May Concern:

You may find the outrage I’m about to unleash unfair. But the Hepatitis C scare caused by your lax security has threatened someone I love and thousands of others. I spent my childhood in and out of the hospital, getting stuck with needles weekly and sometimes daily. I had a blood transfusion in the 1970s, before blood was tested for AIDS contamination, so I know the fear many of your patients feel right now.

Mood music:

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I just read about your clash with state health officials over whether some of your employees should be tested for Hepatitis C along with thousands of your patients. The state is worried that more than one employee was involved in your outbreak because another patient contracted Hep C even though that patient had a procedure at the hospital prior to David Kwiatkowski working there.

State officials are practicing the due diligence you failed to practice when your lax procedures made it easier for Kwiatkowski to steal drugs and leave contaminated needles behind — needles that were then used on your patients. You cite your employees’ right to privacy, which is pathetic. Your first responsibility is to your patients and employees, protecting both from being infected and taking care of them if they become so.

You’re probably thinking, “Who is this jerk to criticize us? We’re the hospital that blew the whistle on Kwiatkowski when hospitals across the country had failed to contact the police after he was caught doing the same thing in their facilities.”

I do give you credit for blowing the whistle, and I agree this isn’t just about your hospital. The entire system failed to protect the public from this monster. Hopefully, this will lead to better reporting in and more cooperation between all states.

That doesn’t absolve you of all responsibility. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found that you “failed to follow standard procedures for preventing the abuse of powerful narcotics administered by staff,” according to an Exeter Patch article. Their investigation found that drugs were not secured to prevent theft by employees who should not have had access to them, among other violations. Your president and CEO, Kevin J. Callahan, failed to apologize for this when he was busy writing a letter to the editor about how proud he was of his institution’s response to the crisis.

Now you balk at the state’s plan to test other employees because of their right to privacy? Give me a break. What about their health?

As I sit here waiting to learn if my relative has Hepatitis C or not, the last thing on my mind is the privacy of your employees. Do I think most of them are excellent at what they do and free of blame here? Absolutely.

But when there’s a danger of Hepatitis C spreading further, you have to stop complaining and roll up your sleeves.

For the sake of your patients and your employees, let state health officials do their job.

Sincerely,

Bill Brenner

Kwiatkowski Exeter Hospital Mashup

August 16, 2012

Bill Maher: Bomb Thrower from the Left

We hear a lot about conservative pundits and how their rhetoric often crosses the lines of decency and civility. I made an example of Ann Coulter a couple days ago to illustrate the point. But there are also plenty of bomb throwers on the left who paint large segments of the population with the same big brush they use to attack individuals who may deserve it. Take Bill Maher, for example.

Maher is a comedian and political commentator. His stock-in-trade has always been to bait people with over-the-top insults. That’s what Politically Incorrect was all about. As Coulter does against liberals, Maher makes a lot of valid observations about conservative stupidity but ruins it by resorting to hate talk and rhetoric that borders on racist.

Mychal Denzel Smith, a writer, social commentator and mental health advocate, offers an example in an NPR article, “The Root: Bill Maher’s Off-Color Jokes Go Too Far“:

Lately he has come to depend on this style of joke to bring home laughs in a way that distracts from the insightful sociopolitical commentary he has to offer. Moreover, he has forgotten the first rule of comedy: Be funny. It simply wasn’t funny when Maher suggested that he wanted President Obama to act like a “real black president” in his handling of the BP oil spill last summer by flashing a gun in the face of its CEO and asking, “We got a motherf – – – ing problem here?!”

Maher is no racist. But, as I wrote in another post a few months ago, the language you use still says something about the kind of person you are.

That aside, what really burns me up about Maher these days is his attack on religion. I’ve written plenty about the crazies who attach themselves to religion and distort reality for their own gain, usually burying the truthful, illuminating aspects of faith beneath the rubble of hooey dumped on us by a minority of nuts like evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, both of whom suggested 9/11 was God’s punishment upon society for homosexuality, feminism, paganism and groups like the ACLU.

With comments like that and their constant penchant for blaming everything bad in this world on homosexuals, liberals and judges who don’t share their worldview, Robertson, Falwell and other like-minded souls are legitimate targets for someone like Maher. But it’s not enough for Maher to go after the individuals who give conservatism a bad name. He denounces all religion and everyone who believes in it. In his book, if you have faith, you’re delusional. He made a whole movie on the subject, Religulous.

As someone who practices Catholicism, I find that insulting.

I’m the first to admit there are a lot of buffoons in the Catholic Church, as evidenced by “Screw You, Cardinal Egan” and “A Rebellious Catholic’s Analysis of Rick Santorum.” But as I’ve said many times before, I believe in Jesus Christ and the Sacriments of the Catholic Church. People often lose their faith because they spend too much time getting angry with church officials and not enough time on the main point of their faith. I also reject the idea that God will send you to Hell because you’re gay, liberal or a devotee of some other religion.

Maher’s worldview is that if you have faith, you’re a racist, conservative, homophobic sheep.

I’ve heard that despite their political and religious differences, Maher and Coulter are actually good friends. Given their tactics, I’m not surprised.

Bill Maher

August 15, 2012

Exeter Hospital’s Hepatitis C Scare Hits Close to Home

David Kwiatkowski made national news for spreading Hepatitis C to patients at Exeter Hospital in N.H. He worked his way across the country, getting fired from several hospitals but escaping arrest until officials at Exeter blew the whistle. The story hits too close to home, as a relative was potentially exposed during an ER visit there last fall.

Mood music:

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To date, 31 patients have tested positive for Hepatitus C. The hospital realized something was horribly wrong after a cluster of patients from the Cardiac Catheterization Unit Kwiatkowski was assigned to were diagnosed with the potentially life-threatening disease.

According to Exeter Patch, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found that the hospital “failed to follow standard procedures for preventing the abuse of powerful narcotics administered by staff.” The investigation found drugs were not secured to prevent theft by employees who should not have had access to them, among other violations, the publication said.

Exeter Hospital President and CEO Kevin J. Callahan defended the hospital in a letter to the editor in the Union-Leader, saying, among other things, “I am proud of the way our staff has handled this tragic situation. We stopped Mr. Kwiatkowski from working. We immediately notified authorities and we have been assisting investigators ever since.”

Now state health officials have fanned out across the region to test more than 3,000 patients.

A few thoughts:

Callahan is right that his staff has acted diligently to deal with the situation, but there’s no apology in his letter. He needs to apologize, because despite the larger problem of Kwiatkowski slipping through the cracks, the hospital still failed to secure its drugs from this sort of thing.
The hospital needs to ensure that everyone who caught Hepatitis C is taken care of for life. No hospital bills, no waiting in lines. The hospital’s lax procedures allowed this to happen, and the victims shouldn’t have to pay a cent for their care. If they are charged, they should sue Exeter’s ass off.
Hospitals need to rethink how they vet potential employees and, when one is fired for something like this, they should be legally obligated to call the police. I’m sure the inevitable pile of lawsuits will help bring about those requirements.

I want to have have some compassion for Kwiatkowski. Having an addictive personality as I do, I know how your sanity and common sense melt away when you start to itch and twitch at the hands of your addiction. But his actions have put someone I love at risk.

That being the case, I hope he gets the maximum penalty. I suspect I’m not the only one who feels that way.

August 14, 2012

Ann Coulter and the Politics of Hate

Of all the political commentators out there, I think Ann Coulter and her politics of hate best illustrate why I’ve come to hate politics.

I don’t dislike Coulter because she’s conservative. There are many conservative voices out there that I admire. I dislike her because everything that comes from her mouth is coated in vitriol. One example that has always stood out is this interview she did with self-proclaimed right-wing blogger John Hawkins. Some could argue that Coulter and Hawkins were just having a lighthearted discussion that was meant as humor. But when she suggests it would have been fine for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to walk into the New York Times building and blow up all the reporters and editors, I have trouble seeing what’s funny:

John Hawkins: You’ve caught a lot of heat for a couple of quotes you made. In your column three days after 9/11, you said, “We know who the homicidal maniacs are.They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” You also said in an interview with the New York Observer, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.” Do you stand by those quotes or do you think that perhaps you should have phrased them differently?

Ann Coulter: Ozzy Osbourne has his bats, and I have that darn “convert them to Christianity” quote. (Thank you for giving the full quote. I have the touch, don’t I?) Some may not like what I said, but I’m still waiting to hear a better suggestion.

RE: McVeigh quote. Of course I regret it. I should have added, “after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.”

In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she has this to say about some of the 9/11 widows:

These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. … I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much. …

The Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president … cutting campaign commercials. … How do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.

Her basic message is always that people with liberal views are godless and unpatriotic. Looking at it from my own corner of the universe, I know many liberal-leaning people who go to Church every Sunday and proudly fly the American flag from their homes. I also know a lot of conservatives who think religion is a bunch of hooey and don’t show much patriotism.

It’s a shame Coulter has to use hateful and derogatory rhetoric the way she does, because I do think there’s a genuine conservative intellectual buried in there.

I generally agree with her when she says liberals were wrong to think Ronald Reagan crazy for ditching détente and seeking to run the Soviet Union into the ground. In hindsight, we can see that Reagan forced the Soviets into a military spending game they couldn’t win, and they got buried beneath the rubble of an economy that rotted from the inside out because of their rigid communist system.

I also think it’s daft to ban all forms of religious expression from public schools. I think kids should be learning about all religions. When they decide what to believe in adulthood, they have some real reference points to draw from. Of course, Coulter would not approve of including Muslims in that mix because, as she has said, all terrorists are Muslims.

Some of you will read this and think I’m being one-sided, but the fact is that I don’t think Coulter represents everything wrong with the Republican party. I think she represents everything wrong with the political discourse in general.

In a future post, I’ll write about a liberal commentator who poisons the political well as the conservative Coulter does, because unlike FOX News — and MSNBC and CNN, for that matter — I believe in doing things the fair and balanced way.

File:Coulter rhabtbr.jpg

August 13, 2012

A Legal Victory for Crohn’s Sufferers

Though Crohn’s Disease has mostly left me alone in my almost-middle age, there’s one thing it still does to me on a regular basis. It strikes me with an out-of-nowhere urge to use the bathroom.

It has hit me while driving, while sitting in work meetings and while standing in the supermarket cereal aisle.

Mood music:

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When the urge hits, the worst thing is being in a store where the restrooms are for employees only. I can understand why some places do this. The general public has a history of misusing public restrooms: scrawling graffiti on stall doors, clogging toilets and leaving ’em that way, and engaging in a multitude of other disgusting behaviors.

But these places ought to make exceptions for those of us who suffer from these surprise attacks. Most do, but I’ve been in places where they stubbornly enforce the employees-only policy. In their minds, store owners have to do what they have to do. Fair enough. But so do Crohn’s and colitis sufferers. And in Massachusetts, their efforts to legally require places to allow them restroom access have paid off.

WBUR, Boston’s NPR affiliate, reports that Gov. Deval Patrick has signed the Restroom Access Bill into law, making the Bay State part of a trend. To date, 12 other states have passed some version of this legislation, Illinois being the first. From the report:

Under the new Mass. law, businesses with at least three employees on duty must allow anyone with Crohn’s, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, a colostomy bag — or with any other medical condition involving urgent toilet needs — to use an employee-only restroom if public facilities aren’t readily accessible. One catch: sufferers must have a valid doctor’s note or approved ID card verifying their disorder. Shopowners can be fined $100 for failure to approve a valid request.

A big advocate for the legislation was Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, who I’ve written about before. He wrote a letter to lawmakers asking them to support the legislation.

I want to thank those who worked so hard to make this happen.

Fortunately, more and more stores have public restrooms. But since we’re always in the store that doesn’t when the sudden urge hits (that’s how it sometimes feels, at least), this will provide some real peace of mind.

Digestive Tract

August 10, 2012

Two Years Later, Remembering Joe Zippo

Hard to believe, but it’s been two years since the death of Joe “Zippo” Kelley. I’ve been listening to Zippo Raid’s Punk Is In Season disc a lot lately and I smile every time. I’ve made some wonderful friends these last two years and Joe is our common link. Sometimes it seems strange to me, because at the time of his death I hadn’t talked to Joe in years.

Mood music:

I’ve gotten to know his awesome parents, Joe and Marie, and a lot of other people from other local bands. I’m richer for that. It would have been a million times better if I was making these new friends with Joe still around, but there’s no use in trying to figure out God’s master plan.

We fell out of touch after college because I let my demons turn me into a recluse for a long time. What’s done is done.

There’s a great lesson for all of us, though, one that has gotten clear as the months have gone by. The soul of a person who lives to the full and impacts so many people for the better never really dies.

Joe’s presence has been at every local rock show I’ve been to, most notably the handful of benefit shows in his honor. He’s very much with us whenever we listen to his music.

One of my favorite songs on the Punk Is In Season disc is about Greg Walsh, drummer of Zippo Raid, Pop Gun and other acts. I’ve known Greg for almost as long as I knew Joe. We worked together at my first reporting gig in Swampscott and Marblehead, Mass. The first time I heard the opening lines, I laughed till I hurt:

Greg couldn’t make it to the fuckin’ show
It was rainin’ wasn’t even fuckin’ snow
What else can we say
Greg is a fuckin’ pu-sey!

Greg knew how well that lyric nailed him, and during the chorus you can hear him gleefully chanting: “Oye! Oye! Oye!”

That’s the Joe I remember. He could poke fun at you and make you feel like one of his best buddies in the same breath. In fact, if he needled you, you knew he liked you. When you hung out with him, you always knew you were in the presence of someone with a heart of gold.

That’s how it was at Salem State, when we’d stand outside the then-commuter cafe smoking cigarettes and talking about Nirvana. He could take to people effortlessly, even a guy like me who often had trouble knowing how to act in front of other people.

It’s been said that when you went to a Zippo Raid show, everyone who showed up was in the band. That’s just another telling example of how welcoming a presence he was.

I’ve become a fan of many of the musicians who showed up at those shows to pay homage to Joe. And that experience has rekindled a love of the Boston music scene that had gone cold for a long time.

Thanks, Joe.

Joe's Headstone

August 7, 2012

America’s Struggle Through Puberty

In yesterday’s post, “It’s the End of American Dominance and I Feel Fine,” I suggested that it’s no big deal if America is no longer number one. But if it’s no longer the top dog, what is it? America is like a confused, emotionally exhausted child trying to find itself.

Mood music:

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My friend Dave Marcus offered this reaction to yesterday’s post:

Not so sure I fully agree with the tone. I think its more that America shows signs that it needs to evolve and neither party wants to as it would mean an end to their bureaucratic hold.

That’s certainly true. If you compare America’s age to that of many other countries in the civilized world, it’s still a child. The Democrats and Republicans are a couple of drunk parents in the middle of a bitter divorce, grabbing the child by each arm and pulling the limbs from the sockets. And it’s been that way for a long time.

Now that child has hit puberty, and the shit is hitting the fan.

Like any tortured kid, America is trying to be what both parents want it to be: the winner; the one who always brings the awards home and walks away from schoolyard fights unscathed. But the parents are clinging to old, unrealistic ideas the child can never live up to.

The old ideas of prosperity are obsolete. An increasing number of us no longer live in a world where you go to an office or factory for eight hours a day, five days a week, then leave the work behind. We’re always checking email on our smartphones and the Internet allows us to work pretty much wherever we want. Work and personal time have been woven together. In this new environment, we have to re-evaluate what it means to successfully compete and prosper while also enjoying our friends, families and personal pursuits.

And so we have a country in economic turmoil and divisiveness coated in hateful rhetoric. In a sense, the child realized it can never live up to Mom and Dad’s expectations and decided to kill the pain with a bottle and a handful of pills.

Our country needs to find itself.

Finding ourselves is not about trying to be number one. It’s about trying to be better than we are.

America can still be a winner. It will never lose its ability to compete, innovate and lead. I’m proud to call myself an American, and I cherish our history. But we can’t stay atop the heap forever. We can only get so big before the load gets too heavy to sustain. The Roman Empire couldn’t do it. Neither could the British Empire. The empires are gone, but the cultures that sprung from them are as prosperous and vibrant as ever.

I know plenty of Brits who are proud of where they’re from, and it has nothing to do with being the richest and most powerful country, which they’re not. I know some folks from Ireland who are pretty happy to live where they live and are proud as hell of their rich heritage. By economic, military and population standards, Ireland is not number one. Not even close.

So what?

The difference between those countries and America is that they have the wisdom that comes with age. They matured long ago. When you get older, you realize some of the stuff you found important as a kid wasn’t so important after all.

America will grow up sooner or later. It will stop measuring its greatness by the size of its wallet and the number of missiles it has in the basement. Right now it doesn’t know quite what to do because the careers of old are gone and not coming back. It has to evolve, as my friend Dave said, and that means shifting expectations.

Adjusting expectations doesn’t mean settling for less than an excellent existence. It may mean redefining our idea of what an excellent existence is and adjusting to the idea that America can’t go back to the way life used to be. The dream of a house with a white picket fence and two cars paid for by Dad’s 9-to-5 office job isn’t realistic anymore. Mom has to work now, too, and there’s no gold watch for either of them after 45 years of service. They’re lucky if they stay at one job 5 or 10 years.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have it good. It just means we have to find new ways to get there.

Flag on Boat

August 6, 2012

It’s the End of American Dominance, and I Feel Fine

America is a nation in economic decline. But that reality isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

My friend Larry Walsh said on Facebook yesterday:

What neither Obama or Romney is telling us is the world we’ve known for the past 70 years is over and not coming back. Both parties are trying to control the decline of the U.S. standard of living long enough to avoid having to take responsibility. Pathetic.

Mood music:

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It’s an interesting statement that has some truth to it. Most people already know the era of American economic domination is over, but we’re addicted to the idea that we’re number one. And like good addicts, we’re masters of denial.

When I was a kid, I was full of insecurities. Insecurity over my parent’s divorce, my brother’s death, my illnesses and my lack of popularity at school. But I always took some comfort in the fact that no matter how shitty life could be, I was still an American. Therefore, I was still a higher form of life than someone in my predicament who was living in France, Mexico, Saudi Arabia or some war-torn land like Afghanistan.

Back then we Americans felt pretty good about ourselves, because Ronald Reagan told us we should. I always thought that was Reagan’s best quality — lifting our sense of self-worth and destiny, no matter how messy our personal lives were. Fast-forward 30 years and all the folks who idolize the ghost of Reagan like a god are grousing that President Obama is presiding over the decline of America. But the truth is that America’s slide started long before Obama took office.

That’s right: America is sliding from the pedestal is sat upon since the end of World War II. The oil crisis and inflation of the 1970s couldn’t knock it over. So what gives?

I have my theories, which may or may not be accurate. I think, as Larry suggested, that we’ve been clinging to the false notion that we can restore America to its past glory. But I don’t think it’s that America has lost its ability to compete and shine. It’s simply the fact that technology has made the world a smaller place and the Internet has empowered people from around the world in unprecedented ways. You could say it’s leveled the global playing field.

That may mean that we don’t get to be number one anymore. But so what?

Personally, I’m happier in the face of our national decline. I have my shit together in ways I could only dream of in the 1980s. I have family and friends I adore. I see people conducting themselves with valor in the face of adversity every day. And nationality has nothing to do with it. It’s about personal will, heart and faith.

I see fellow Americans shining at everyday life. And I see friends from around the world doing the same.

Are we Americans going to have to work harder for our slice of the pie in the years to come? Perhaps. But, really now, have we ever gotten anywhere without busting our balls every day? If you’re independently wealthy maybe you have. But most people I know have never had it easy.

Larry’s right: The world we’ve known for 70 years is gone and isn’t coming back. Presidential candidates will never tell you that because their profession is to tell you exactly what you want to hear. So it’s up to us to face reality and get over it.

Fuck being the number-one nation on Earth. Let’s focus on being better human beings regardless of nationality.

I’ve never been much of a Billy Joel fan. But he once sang a lyric that’s always resonated with me: “The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow’s not as bad as it seems.”

Ain’t that the truth?

US Flaf

August 3, 2012

Chick-fil-A Controversy: Free Speech or Corporate Irresponsibility?

Let’s take a short quiz: The controversy over Chick-fil-A’s president opposing gay marriage is a matter of:

First Amendment rights
Corporate irresponsibility
Both
None of the above

Mood music:

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If you ask me, the answer is either C and D, depending on your political and social sensibilities.

Yesterday I wrote that I don’t really care about the controversy because I don’t eat at Chick-fil-A and the story looked more like one of political grandstanding than squashed rights. Naturally, some of my friends and readers thought I was missing the point. Said one friend:

Two mayors threatened to deny [Chick-fil-A] licenses. It’s a 1st Amendment issue. Plus, it was Dan Cathy’s personal views. Threatening the company that employs him is thuggery.

Said another friend:

FYI – The Cathy family *owns* CFA – not just an employee. The 1st Amendment only applies to gov’t reprisal for speech. Not private action.

To that, the first friend noted that the reprisals were from Boston mayor Thomas Menino, Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

And on the Twitter discussion went.

Is this about First Amendment rights? Sure. Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy is an American, and as such he has every right to share his beliefs without fear of government reprisal. True, the mayors of Boston and Chicago joined some other politicians in telling Chick-fil-A to get off their lawns, but to me that was nothing more than grandstanding to score a few points with voters. They can threaten to evict, but in the end we all know they can’t do that.

The mayors deserve big ugly dunce caps for their tough talk. They shouldn’t have threatened at all because they can’t follow through, nor should they be able to. It restricts freedoms.

This is also about the right of Americans to support or protest a corporation based on the political views coming from its CEOs, presidents and other leaders. That’s not thuggery; it’s freedom of expression. I don’t like people shoving their views in my face, but they still have the right to express themselves, whether they’re standing outside with protest signs or standing in line in a show of support.

Is this about corporate responsibility? Perhaps. Consumers have the right to hold companies to high standards and punish them with boycotts when they feel a line has been crossed. But while some see Cathy’s opining as an irresponsible smear against gays, others see it as a courageous stand. There is no black and white here.

To me corporate responsibility is more about the quality of the product, the treatment of the customer and honest bookkeeping, however. That’s my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

There’s another aspect worth considering, which Erin (wife of Bill and managing editor of this blog) brought up. In her words:

If the CEO is open about being against gay marriage, how much of his belief is part of the corporate culture? Are gays hired at CFA, from the highest to the lowest? Are they treated equally? Are there regular gay customers of CFA who are not treated equally? The CEO can believe what he likes and espouse it, but he can’t allow his company to discriminate based on his beliefs. Not blatantly, not subtly. And maybe that’s the real danger of a powerful person espousing his discriminatory beliefs so openly: there are those who will take it as license to discriminate accordingly, whether to please the boss or because they feel safe to act on their own beliefs.

In the final analysis, my feelings are still summed up by this comment, made by another friend on Facebook:

Dammit people, what’s wrong with you? Eat where you want to eat! Love who you want to love! Do whatever you want to do, just don’t expect everyone else to necessarily agree with you, share your views, or hate your enemies. Live life and stop worrying about who the hell ate yummy chicken today!

With that, it’s on to the next subject.

I'm Just Here for the Violence

August 2, 2012

I Don’t Give a Chick-fil-A

A lot of people have been pissed off at Chick-fil-A lately. Some are outraged that the restaurant chain’s president, Dan Cathy, came out against gay marriage. Others are outraged because a guy can’t make a social stand without people taking it out on his poultry.

I wasn’t going to write about it because, well, I don’t really care. But the noise has gotten too loud to ignore.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2KLjwY9kRqYVBAgeYs8FxR]

We Americans love to find things to be pissed about. If you support gay marriage, Chick-fil-A is now synonymous with bigotry. If you think marriage should only be between a man and woman, Dan Cathy is now a hero. If you’re like me and you don’t really care, you’re now pissed off at both sides for getting in your face with their politics.

I don’t care what Cathy believes for a couple of reasons:

I’ve never eaten at Chick-fil-A and don’t really care to. Fast food is the monkey on my back, and I’m better off staying far away from it. Since I lack the enthusiasm others seem to have for the place, I find it difficult to care what the chain’s president thinks about the issues of the day. If I were a Chick-fil-A enthusiast, I’d care a lot more about the taste of the food than the politics of the owners.
I’ve already taken my stand regarding homosexuality and have nothing more to say about it. I don’t care if you’re gay or straight. I care about how you treat your fellow man and woman, not who you choose to love.

But now people are really starting to get crazy over it, with name-calling and scapegoating. So here I am with a couple thoughts:

If you choose to boycott Chick-fil-A, go for it. But don’t expect everyone to follow suit, and please don’t paint people as villains because they eat there. You’ve never met most of these people, and you have no idea what they feel in their hearts.
If you don’t want to boycott, don’t. But don’t start bashing people for taking their stand. Just walk past the protesters, eat your sandwich and shut up.

One’s political and religious beliefs are complicated things. You can’t unlock what a person thinks and feels based on where they eat.

It’s also a safe bet that a lot of people standing in line for their chicken don’t follow news and politics that closely and have no idea the chain’s president said something about gay marriage.

Sometimes, a person is just hungry and needs something to eat, pure and simple. They’re not going to appreciate or understand your support of or protests against Chick-fil-A and, by extension, gay marriage.

They’re just going to be pissed because you’re holding up the line.

Chick-fil-A