Arguably, the Chick-fil-A fiasco has subsided with the completion of last week’s public demonstrations, but in its wake lie the complicated questions of where the chips fell. Here’s a round-up of issues to consider in the aftermath:

The Political Made Personal

The high visibility of the company’s anti-gay positions and giving has clearly had an impact, but one much less measurable than most of the coverage can truly examine: on the personal level. As people proudly boasted their support for Chick-fil-A on Facebook and other social media outlets, their LGBT family and friends were faced with the choice of how to respond, if at all. Justin Michael, a gay Christian, wrote to The Advocate about addressing this very situation with his parents:

I am a gay Christian.  This whole Chick-fil-A controversy meant nearly nothing to me until I saw a picture of my conservative parents (whom I love deeply) on Facebook yesterday proudly holding their Chick-fil-A sandwiches.

I broke down crying in front of my computer screen. And since I’m not good with speaking how I feel, I wrote my mother a Facebook message with my concerns about the photos.

She took them down and apologized for the insensitivity.  She was just supporting a man’s right for “freedom of speech.”

Getting The Talking Points Right

Indeed, this “freedom of speech” argument unfortunately dominated the coverage, despite being largely irrelevant to the actual controversy. There is no legal way for a city to block Chick-fil-A so long as it doesn’t discriminate, nor has anyone tried to censor Dan Cathy’s vitriolic remarks. Despite how quickly lawmakers backed away from empty threats to interfere with Chick-fil-A’s business, the media continued to let this infringement-of-freedom talking point circumvent the LGBT community’s objections. As a result, many would-be LGBT allies were seemingly defending Chick-fil-A by catering to this strawman talking point. The editorial board at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette acknowledged how many have gotten this wrong:

This had the effect of putting the company into the hottest broiler of the culture wars — the issue of same-sex marriage — but in America people can freely state their principles and act on them. And other people can criticize them for it. That’s how the First Amendment works. Those diners who came out last Wednesday in part because they thought that Chick-fil-A was being denied its First Amendment rights were wrong about that.

The Boston Globe similarly argued today that Mayor Tom Menino (D) hurt marriage equality efforts by turning “bullies like Dan Cathy into martyrs.” Michaelangelo Signorile further offered insights into how the messaging got off the tracks, how LGBT leadership was unfortunately not at the forefront of the effort, and how the response was poorly organized at various levels. There is much to be learned from the past three weeks that can be applied in future efforts to dissuade people from supporting anti-gay companies and organizations.
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Defenders of Chick-fil-A’s anti-equality positions have argued that the company simply believes in the “biblical definition of marriage.” An infographic has been circulating the web demonstrating the actual biblical definitions of marriage, including a man, his wife, and his concubines; a man, his wife, and her slaves; a man and his many wives; a rapist and his victim; etc. The National Organization for Marriage’s Ruth Institute responded to the infographic on Facebook and its blog today, arguing that it actually supports conservatives’ case against same-sex marriage:

This image has been making the rounds on Facebook, in an attempt to discredit those of us who insist that removing the gender requirement is redefining marriage. Look carefully at the image and you will see that in ALL of the examples, both genders are represented. This image reinforces the conservative position about needing a gender requirement, it does not undermine our position. And here is why: marriage has always been understood primarily as the means to bearing and raising children. Yes marriage provides companionship to the married partners, but that has never been the reason we needed marriage as a society.

Apparently, it was okay to redefine marriage so that women were not treated as subordinate property — as they were in every example in the graphic — but suddenly it’s problematic to give same-sex families the same respect and security as other couples. If NOM and its Ruth Institute really believe that the blatant hypocrisy of selective Biblical interpretation adds integrity to their argument, let them continue to flaunt it. It only illuminates their obvious bias against gays and lesbians.

Map of State-Sponsored Homophobia (via International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association)

A new report in the medical journal The Lancet details the available data about how stigma against homosexuality across the globe is interfering with efforts to slow down the spread of HIV. The article notes that “most global cases of HIV are not due to homosexual transmission,” but anti-gay laws, harassment, intimidation, silence, and invisibility still have a major impact on the effectiveness of HIV advocacy and outreach:

Almost everywhere, rates of HIV infection are higher in men who have sex with men than in the rest of the population. This is partly because of inadequate information, denial of resources for prevention services of all sorts, and because heterosexism and homophobia marginalise people and make them less able to adopt preventive techniques, even if they are available. Although difficult to prove conclusively, good evidence shows that greater stigma and criminalisation helps increase vulnerability to infection.[...]

Homophobia both increases vulnerability and reduces access to services. Prevention programmes directed towards homosexual men are often harassed by police, and official silence means that some men mistakenly believe that homosexual intercourse is safe. In much of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Africa, and the Middle East, where any recognition of rights or citizenship is denied to homosexuals, programming of services to include MSM is difficult to achieve. Homophobia affects HIV in direct ways by driving discussion about MSM and homosexuality underground, legitimising fear and prejudice, and compromising AIDS service organisations so that they cannot work publicly with LGBT and MSM communities.

This argument jibes with reports that HIV rates in Uganda actually increased as what seems to be a backfire of the abstinence-based advocacy required by President George W. Bush’s AIDS relief plan (PEPFAR). When all gay sex is condemned — or even simply when marriage equality is denied — abstinence messages sound to gay men like sentences to a life of chastity, a life without love. Sexual health can only be addressed when sex is actually acknowledged and discussed, and homophobia continues to be the largest barrier to that education taking place.

Mitt Romney is no supporter of LGBT equality. Throughout his 2008 and 2012 campaigns, he has rarely passed up an opportunity to boast about his opposition to marriage equality. In February, he proudly proclaimed that by resurrecting an obscure 1913 law intended to limit interracial marriage, he stopped same-same couples from other states from getting married in Massachusetts, saying he “prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage.” And while he once promised to co-sponsor the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, he now believes that states should be free to allow employment discrimination.

But the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA)policy of prohibiting LGBT Scouts and leaders is apparently too anti-LGBT for even an anti-LGBT activist like Romney. This weekend, his campaign announced that Romney stands by a 1994 comment he made that the BSA should stop discriminating.

The Associated Press reported Saturday:

Back in 1994, during a political debate in Massachusetts, Romney said this: “I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue. I feel that all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.”

A Romney spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said in an e-mail that this remains Romney’s position today.

At the time of his initial comments, Romney served on the group’s national executive board and earned their ire for publicly criticizing the organization, in violation of board rules. The fact that corporate CEOs who serve on the national board, Eagle Scouts, and now even Romney are standing up against this discriminatory policy show just how out-of-step the ban is from mainstream American values.

Friday’s same-sex “Kiss-In” at Chick-fil-A might not have achieved the same traffic-stopping scope as Mike Huckabee’s Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, but it still attracted media attention across the country. Though its president, Dan Cathy, believes that same-sex couples are inviting God’s judgment upon society and the company has given millions of dollars toward opposing LGBT equality, that will not stop gays and lesbians from loving and building families. Here’s a look at some of the protests:

• In Decatur, Georgia, protesters encouraged Cathy to accept a dinner invitation from a same-sex family.
• In Atlanta, Georgia, a brief kiss-in protest sought to tell customers that “God loves everyone.”
• In Los Angeles, California, the kiss-in lasted well into the night, allowing for live 11:00 PM newscasts.
• In Dallas, Texas, a very small protest still attracted media attention, riling a customer to try to eject them from the property in the middle of an interview.
• In Omaha, Nebraska, protesters were confronted by a customer who said, “You don’t have to be a pervert!”
• The Huffington Post has a collection of photos from other protests in Pompano Beach, Florida, Birmingham, Alabama, Houston, Texas, and other locations around the country.

After the disheartening image of thousands of people proudly eating chicken on behalf of their anti-gay beliefs, these simple photos remind that the LGBT community is unfazed in its struggle toward the freedom to marry.

Here also is a special song performance from Daniel Torres, who is currently understudying Ricky Martin in Evita in Broadway. He encourages people not to eat at Chick-fil-A, reminding them that even though the restaurant claims to operate according to the Bible, you shouldn’t “chow down at Chick-fil-A if you support the gays”: