Advocating for/against gay rights is a spectrum, and you need to see where they fall on it.
Tolerance is a 2-way street.
Additionally, it's not that they don't advocate for gay rights, it's the they actively fight against them. I think this changed very recently, but it has been the case most of their history.
That said, I'm of the mind that most large corps do stuff that is against human rights in one way or another - sweat shop abuse, crushing of labor unions, among many others - and purchasing from Chickfila isn't much different from drinking Coke or buying Nestle. It's part of society. If you avoid corps with rights abuses you must avoid nearly everything.
Not advocating FOR gay rights isn't a moral failing. But that's irrelevant for what Chick-Fil-A are accused of (and frankly a straw man).
Advocating AGAINST someone else's rights or freedoms, even when those rights have no impact on your beliefs, is a moral failing. That's what Chick-Fil-A is doing.
So, no, it isn't a "2-way street" when one side is just asking to be treated equally and the other is asking that OTHER PEOPLE are treated like a sub-class of people.
It’s a wedge issue used to whip conservative voters, not a moral issue. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you must fight to prevent heathens from filing taxes jointly.
Is "should pedophiles be legally allowed to have sex with and marry the people they are attracted to" a moral issue to you? I mean, the kid consented!
Yes, most of us would say that's different. But why it's different is a moral position - and so to some people, it's really not different.
(Also, "the correct answer isn't a moral position, while the incorrect answer is an immoral position" is a bit of a contradiction. If "gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry" is an immoral thing to believe or act on, then you're acknowledging the choice of positions as being a moral one. "I should be able to kill all the people I see" is also a moral position, of course)
The reason men must be able to marry men is not a moral rationale, it’s a legal one. There is a well established legal doctrine that says you can’t make laws that discriminate on the basis of sex without some sex-based reason.
There’s no sex-based reason for why I should be able to have a woman at my side in the hospital but not a man. You don’t need a womb or breasts to to speak to the doctor on my behalf. That’s ridiculous. If my sister can choose to have a man by her bedside, so should I be allowed to. That’s equal protection.
There is no similar protection for children. Literally no one is able to choose a random 12 year old boy to make decisions for them in the hospital. And that’s fine because there is no equal protection for kids. Nor should there be. They are legally wards of their parents, not adults. They very intentionally do not have the same protection under the law that their parents do.
None of this has anything to do with morality, it has to do with equal protection under the law.
Morals and legality are different. Marijuana is federally illegal - does that make it immoral to produce/distribute/possess/consume? I would say no, and a large part of the country would say the same. Similarly, I think a ton of people would freak the fuck out if the supreme court legalized marrying prepubescent children - it might now be legal, but that doesn't make it moral.
The moral position that people fighting gay marriage have is that the current caselaw is wrong, and that equal protection shouldn't be interpreted that way.
I've been trying to explain how it's a moral position for some people, in response to this statement of yours. I'm not sure how to make that argument in a way that would be convincing to you, in large part because it's not convincing to me.
And I suppose we may be getting some wires crossed - for a lot of people in the world, there doesn't have to be a justification for a moral belief - or at least not one you would accept. "My religious authority told me" or "my parents told me" might not be as acceptable in the society we live in today, but they've all been extremely successful throughout history.
When I say that being against gay rights is an immoral position, it does not mean that a person is immoral, because that is an ill-defined phrase. It means that in the context of their speech and actions on the topic of gay rights, they are behaving immorally.
I agree that there is a spectrum of beliefs, and that it is necessary to meet somebody where they are. Each step is an important one, and beliefs change slowly.
Where I grow angry is when it is implied that Christianity is inherently and irrevocably against gay rights. Where I grow angry is when it is implied that all Christians must be similarly against gay rights. Where I grow angry is when it is implied that my faith must be a tool for bigotry, rather than an instrument of community.
There are many denominations that LARP as Christian, Jew, or Muslim while advocating for gay rights, but they accomplish this by discarding large parts of their holy texts.
[1] For purposes of this discussion when I say "choose to be homosexual" I mean to choose to perform homosexual acts, get married to someone of the same sex, etc. I don't mean it in the sense of whether or not feeling homosexual desire is a choice.
- One could believe that, by making man in his own image, God desired that men be able to make their own decisions even if those decisions sometimes displeases him and/or they will eventually answer for.
- One could believe that a free society ultimately allows one to better accomplish God's will even if it also means that people are free to do things that you don't agree with.
- One could feel that, since humans are imperfect, it is possible that they will misinterpret scripture or apply it unjustly. Therefore, it may not be safe to force people to follow a given way of life.
- One could feel that judgement is the sole domain of God and therefore human law should not seek to enforce purely moral issues.