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View From Your Table

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

I ate that lunch last Thursday, but forgotten I had taken the photo. This new story from the Kansas City Star reminded me about how delicious that bigot chicken tasted:

University of Kansas faculty, advocating for LGBTQ people on campus, are denouncing the school’s new relationship with Chick-fil-A restaurant chain and calling for a boycott.

Chick-fil-A had operated out of the basement of KU’s Wescoe Hall for 15 years, but this school year moved up to a prominent spot in the student union. In addition, the restaurant secured a sponsorship — the newly created “Chick-fil-A Coin Toss” at the start of every Jayhawks home football game for the next several years.

“KU granted Chick-fil-A, a bastion of bigotry, a prime retail location in the heart of our campus,” KU’s Sexuality & Gender Diversity Faculty and Staff Council said in a letter sent this week to Chancellor Doug Girod, the provost’s office and the athletic department.

“Moving Chick-fil-A to the Union and granting it a role at the start of all home football games violates the feelings of safety and inclusion that so many of us have striven to create, foster, and protect on campus, and sends a message that the Union, KU Athletics, and the administration at large are more concerned about money and corporate sponsorship than the physical, emotional, and mental well being of marginalized and LGBTQ people.”

“Violates the feeling of safety.” Fried chicken nuggets. Can you imagine being so freaking neurotic? And can you imagine being a college professor, and actually being motivated to complain to the Chancellor about this?

Being woke is so demanding.

UPDATE: A reader at KU passed along an August 21 e-mail from the university’s provost to staff and faculty. It included the following paragraph:

This summer Chick-fil-A moved from the Underground to the Kansas Union. Now five years into a 10-year contract, KU was contractually required to provide updates this summer that would have cost more than $3 million to implement in the Underground, but instead could be achieved for less than $500,000 with the move to the Kansas Union. This relocation does not represent a new contract. Rather, KU is following through on its contractual obligations while being mindful of current fiscal realities. Groups of KU students, faculty, and staff have voiced their opposition to having Chick-fil-A on campus because of donations from the chain’s foundation to organizations with anti-LGBTQ platforms. Moving forward, I believe it is important to have thoughtful discussion and deliberation when we enter into contracts. In the future, we will do so in a manner that is transparent and informed by our commitment to affirm diversity and to be a welcoming and inclusive campus.

It would appear that if you want to contract with KU in the future, you will be required to affirm progressive identity-politics dogmas.

The Left cannot stand the thought that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying a delicious chicken nugget. You know, a lot of us laugh at this idiocy, but imagine yourself being a vendor who would like to work with the University of Kansas, but can’t because you once donated to “organizations with anti-LGBTQ platforms” — like, I dunno, your church — or can’t in good conscience jump through whatever Diversity-And-Inclusion™ hoops they lay out?

I know progressives want to be thought of as the people who want health care for all, greater economic quality, and stuff. But to me, they’re the ones who won’t be satisfied until unwoke chicken nuggets are driven from the face of the earth.

UPDATE.2: A reader sends in these photos taken at the same time in LaGuardia airport in New York City. Not Birmingham, not Nashville: New York City. Compare the line at Chik-fil-A (top) to the line at McDonalds (bottom):

UPDATE.3: Lo and behold! A reader writes:

A follow up on your Chick-fil-a post. I am a liberal, sometimes reader who lives in Portland, Oregon. I know that in the conservative imagination, all us Portlanders are transgender, window smashing, ANTIFA members. I would like to assure you that although our politics are bad (in your opinion), we are sufficiently rational people that we now support three Chick-Fil-A locations all added in the last few years. The opening of the newest location was met with a certain amount of tumult and disruption: they had to change the traffic pattern around the restaurant because too many people wanted to go.

Myself and a few friends– all liberal threats to The American Way ranging from Moralistic Therapeutic Diests to apostate Catholics like myself– went for lunch on the grand opening and it was delicious and efficient per usual. We even got a free cookie. Now I happen to think gay marriage is a good thing, but I won’t deny good service.

Just a friendly reminder that away from Twitter the Culture War doesn’t run quite so hot.

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