Conservatives Celebrate OPEC Appreciation Day

"I'm going to boycott the Dixie Chicks because they criticized President Bush! And I'm going to boycott every radio station that doesn't boycott the Dixie Sluts!"

--Conservaites, 2003

"Liberals are boycotting Chick-fil-A just because the founder spoke out in favor of traditional marriage! This is an attack on free speech!"

--Conservatives, 2012

"Would you eat at a restaurant if the owner was trying to prevent you from getting married?"
--Lorenzo Dunning, 2012

If we learned one thing from Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, it's this: If you want to support "traditional" marriage, it's a lot easier to buy a chicken sandwich and waffle fries than it is to be faithful to your spouse. And ladies, your husband can have a Larry Craig moment in Chick-fil-A men's room just as easily as he could in any other public restroom. And one other thing, in a blind taste test, people preferred the taste of Dolly Madison donuts over a Chick-fil-A sandwich 4 to 1.

Now some people are calling the Chick-fil-A boycott a failure because conservatives mobilized on August 1 to give the restaurant its most profitable day ever. I don't see it that way at all. For me, this is not about trying to run Chick-fil-A out of business. And I don't think elected officials should try to prevent Chick-fil-A from coming to their town. I don't think students should try to ban Chick-fil-A from college campuses. Let people choose for themselves where they spend their money. I just know I won't be spending any money at Chick-fil-A.

What I don't like is how some on the far right have misrepresented (i.e. lied about) what this boycott was all about. If you know that a business is using a portion of its profits to oppress a certain group of people, you can make the choice not to do business with that company.

Anywaze...the Internet is now flooded with a lot of folks asking the same question: "If you have stopped eating at Chick-fil-A because the founder opposes homosexuality, then when are you going to stop buying gas because OPEC countries put homosexuals to death?"

Now this is interesting. Such conservatives aren't saying, "It is horrible that some people in the world are being put to death just because they are gay! I think one way to resolve this is to boycott Big Oil and let me be the first to support such a boycott!" End of quote. 

What they are saying is, "Every single OPEC country uses the money they make from oil to kill homosexuals. That really doesn't bother me. It's only worth mentioning because it gives me an opportunity to call liberals out on their supposed hypocrisy." You see, this is what happens when the same group of people who hate public schools trust the knowledge they receive from reading memes.

So Big Oil is responsible for the deaths of gays in Arab countries. That would explain why everyone lined up outside Chick-fil-A kept their engines running while they waited 30 minutes in the drive-thru lane.  

Since none of the conservatives who called for an OPEC boycott are participating in it, I decided to start such a movement in my community. Well, the whole idea backfired. Here is a reprint of an article from our local newspaper, The Gooseberry Gazette, to tell you all about it. 

Lorenzo Dunning did not realize the backlash he would receive when he called for the gay community to boycott oil and gasoline. "In the past, when I decreased my use of foreign oil, conservatives called me a tree hugger. So, in my effort to please them, I started using more oil. Then they started calling me a mass murderer. I learned from conservatives that every penny spent at the pump goes to execute homosexuals in the Middle East. I wanted to put a stop to it."

Dunning founded the local chapter of QABO, Queers Against Big Oil. He thought that it was a cause that would bring liberals and conservatives together. Most local conservatives, however, would see QABO's activism as an attack on free speech.

Matt Huxtable, president of the Family Focus Heritage Foundation, encouraged Gooseberry residents to participate in OPEC Appreciation Day, which took place yesterday. Lester Hatfield, the owner of Glory Gas, said yesterday was his most profitable day ever. Hatfield laughed, "If homosexuals want this kind of business, they should boycott themselves."

Huxtable explained, "Most of us disagree with Arab countries on the issue of the death penalty for homosexuals, but we do respect their stand on traditional marriage. Homosexuals in the United States should be thankful for the special rights they have here in America. We don't put them on death row and they won't even thank us for the freedom we grant them."

As you can tell, the Gooseberry Gazette, like every other newspaper in the United States, has a liberal bias. But one thing is for sure, homophobes are here to stay...unless the gay community boycotts suicide.

Let Homophobes Have a Restaurant They Can Call Their Own

(My Friend Lorenzo is written before a studio audience.)

We have one Chick-fil-A in Gooseberry and today (August 1), all the fundamentalist Christians came out in favor of "moral" values, "traditional" marriage, freedom of speech, and overpriced "chicken" sandwiches. Dear! Traffic was backed up for blocks, but I'm sure a lot of the traffic was from people who had to go back to because they screwed up their orders at the drive-thru window. 

Anywaze...people actually had to park over at the next shopping center and walk over to the restaurant. And no one who was doing that seemed to be embarrassed about it. Gosh! 

But I did see that Arbutus had set up a stand on the street corner where she was selling t-shirts that read, "My homophobic parents went to Chick-fil-A and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." I used to hate Arbutus, but I like her now.

I got as close as I could to all the action, but I still had to use my binoculars to look inside. I had never seen more polyester in one place. But I had to get out of there. I was the only one in the traffic jam that didn't have a Christian fish logo on the back of my car, so they must have known I was a spy. 

We got an aerial view when we went up in the My Friend Lorenzo news chopper. As I looked over Gooseberry, I noticed one thing. With all the fundamentalist Christians going to Chick-fil-A, there were no protesters outside of Planned Parenthood. That had to be a first. Oh yeah, there weren't very many people at the strip clubs and adult bookstores today, either. I don't know why.


But since all the conservative Christians were at Chick-fil-A today, Myron knew who would not be at home.

Myron

 
 He must have looked into who in town has donated to whose campaign to draw his conclusions about who would be likely to be at Chick-fil-A on this day. But he knew what he was doing. He lost count of how many houses he robbed, but he swears he is going to give ten percent of the money he stole to the Lord.

But all this gave me an idea. If we could get some other businesses to be anti-gay, this would encourage homophobes to their spending only in selected locations while the rest of us enjoy our shopping and dining in homophobe-free environments. Imagine that. Two people of the same sex could hold hands in a restaurant without any worries.  And the fundamentalists could sit at Chick-fil-A and talk about their churches' praise bands and how homosexuals are threatening their marriages. 

Let me tell you something. A gay person could threaten your marriage only if one of you is on the downlow. So if you still think that homosexuals are a threat to your marriage, you may need to talk to someone. I understand that Michele Bachmann's husband is accepting new patients. 

Anywaze...this is the plan I would like to present: Let's all ask certain businesses (the good ones) to support marriage equality. And we can ask all the sucky businesses to support "traditional" marriage. It is of extreme importance that we not allow businesses to get away with staying neutral on this issue. Tell them that both sides will boycott them if they don't take a stand.

Oh, and one other thing. Myron is asking me to encourage all of you to write to Mike Huckabee and request that he make every Wednesday Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.

Love and Light,
Lorenzo