Chick-fil-a Does Not Equal Christian

I am a Chick-fil-a boycotter. Am I really angry and disgusted at their stance with homosexuals? Absolutely. Do I hate them? No. Do I hate Christians? Absolutely not. Let's make a fair distinction here. I don't hate the Christians who can't see gays as equals. I hate that some people interpret Christianity as a reason to exclude someone. I don't mind the debate that's going on right now. Ultimately, I think it will make us better people having gone through it just like our relationships with our loved ones grow stronger having gone through conflict. But if we're going to have something productive come out of this, let's be fair. Saying that all Christians hate gay people is like saying all Asians know Karate.

I was born and raised in Oklahoma, a very Christian environment. Most people here are Christians. Guess what? Not all the Christians here are gay hating bigots. I have Christian friends who were disowned by their families for being gay. But I also have Christian friends who lovingly accept their gay family members. All the people that I know and have met in person that are anti-gay are actually pretty good people in my eyes. I choose to see them in that light, whether we see eye to eye or not. I still oppose their views outwardly and vocally. The thing that makes us different is that I choose to include people despite the fact they think differently than me rather than exclude them.

While my views tend to side with the people who are likely to post something like this:

I can't agree with the bigoted wording here. First of all, this is a lame abuse of media. Good Christian people that do help at food shelters, unfortunately, are not news and are not going to be seen and counted among the "good Christians". I'd be willing to bet that Christians doing good in the world far outnumber the people who went out to participate in Chick-fil-a appreciation day. I happen to know lots of Christians who do lots of good things. And believe it or not, I even know some Christians who are anti-gay that do good things too and would never do something as ugly as oppose gays by eating a chicken sandwich.

I'm not a Christian, but I know good Christian people who side with people that would post something like that picture but would be offended by it. Many of my friends are the type of people who would say "not all Muslims are terrorists". I hope they're the same people who would show Christians the courtesy of saying "Not all Christians are gay-hating, self-righteous, self-serving evil people". Let's not take the people who refuse to see gays as equals and think eating a chicken sandwich increases their chances of going to heaven and lump them with those who share your views who also happen to be Christian.

The solution to solving the equation "X hates Y" is not substituting X and Y until it balances out (because it never will). A better approach is figuring out how to replace "hate" with "=" so X and Y can coexist.