Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Chick-Fil-A wants a return of patriarchy

Interesting comment by Biblically-challenged Dan Cathy, President of Chick-Fil-A:
"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit."
Hmmm, what would that be? Well, for certain, it's not "one man and one woman" in a peer-to-peer relationship. It's one man in a superior relationship to at least one woman. For King Solomon, it was one man--him--and 700 wives. Oh, and to keep tradition alive, he also had 300 concubines. Talk about a sex drive, wowee! He even made time for the Queen of Sheba, giving her "all her desire, whatsoever she asked". If this is the "biblical definition of the family unit," count me in!

The traditional middle-Eastern definition of marriage is one man and one or more women, all of whom are considered property. Women are subordinate in all things to men. In biblical times, consensual sex was unknown or even forbidden. I read somewhere (but don't have the reference), that in Assyria ca. 1000 BCE, consensual sex was a capital offense. Men had sex with their subordinates: women, slaves, apprentices etc. Sodomy was an act of domination of one person over another, which is why it was eschewed in Mosaic law. The servant of the centurion that Jesus healed more than likely satisfied his master's sexual needs, not just his need for polished armor. Even today, traditional weddings feature the father "giving" his daughter to the groom, as if he had received a good bride-price for her.

So, when Dan Cathy defends his anti-gay stance and contributes millions to "Christian" organizations that oppose homosexuality (however they define it), I infer that he longs for a system of patriarchy that we in the Western world abandoned in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mr. Cathy is welcome to his beliefs. Most of our society, however, is not there with him. And, I'm not in any of his restaurants for the foreseeable future.

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