Okay- I have to admit it. I officially don't understand people. I've been watching this whole 'Chik Fil-A' thing blow itself totally out of proportion over the last couple of weeks. Oh, its only the latest in a long series of head shakers, but I REALLY don't understand this. Near as I can tell, the owners of the chain (A single family, as I understand) has used a percentage of their profits to fund legislation against homosexual marriage and the Gay, Lesbian and transsexual community (And their supporters) have declared a mass media war against the company involving protests, media flaming, some sort of same sex 'kiss in' etc. which of course, has spawned retaliation of similar things from the chik-fil-a people so the whole thing has blown up to ludicrous proportions which I am, unfortunately, forced to follow if I choose to log into my Facebook page. Now- Here's where I start to get fuzzy. My question on this whole thing is a two-parter, so pay attention because there will be a quiz at the end. First- The GBLT community has always been the first group to preach about freedom of expression, equal rights to express themselves, etc. Now that's cool, I'm all about self expression. However- It seems to me that that is EXACTLY what they are up in arms and protesting about right now. The Chic Fill A people chose to express their dislike for the concept of homosexual marriage. (Again, I'm actually all for it. Life has a tendency to suck enough, if you can grab some happiness somewhere then go for it, more power to you. Also, having never been proposed to by a gay man I REALLY don't feel like I have a horse in that race, so to speak.) So the first part of my question is this: Why is it that people seem to feel like Freedom of speech and expression is great- unless its about something they don't agree with? Then they do their best to protest it and force it to stop? News flash, people. Freedom of speech is for EVERYONE whether you like it or not. It would seem to me that it would be far more productive for the GBLT community to simply boycott the restaurant. Well, unless they REALLY like the food they serve there. Never eaten in one, so I couldn't say one way or another about that either. The second part of the question is: I wonder what they REALLY hope to accomplish by this? Does someone out there actually sit and think "Hmmm...if we stage a protest and force our beliefs on these people who are completely convinced that our lifestyle is wrong they'll see the light and change their minds." After all, protesting someone's beliefs IS the most expedient way to come to an agreement, right? Seriously, folks- What the hell is wrong with people? It seems to me like there are a lot of people out there that haven't figured out yet, if someone doesn't like you or your beliefs you aren't likely going to change their minds by protesting the fact that they don't like you or your beliefs. It seems to me that life as a GBLT would be difficult enough to live, without inviting the inevitable backlash of protesting something voraciously that they aren't going to change anyway. If the very liberal folks are to be believed its the 1% of the population that has all the money and hates gays, etc. anyway, so wouldn't this, in effect, create a HUGE advertisement for the restaurant and actually HELP them financially? As I said before, though, I really don't understand. Perhaps I'm missing some larger point somewhere along the way. Maybe someday I'll figure it all out, but in the meantime all I see is people moving further and further apart in a world that is already far to separated. In the end it seems simple. Everyone just wants to be left alone to live their life in the way that makes them happy. Maybe we should all start working on that and stop worrying so much about judging what makes someone else happy.