Poll Position: Will today’s Chick-fil-A ‘kiss-in’ be successful?

AJC ^ | Aug 3 2012 | Kyle Wingfield

[scottjewell]

The “buycott” of Chick-fil-A on Wednesday produced what the company will only describe as an “unprecedented day” for business. Today, we get the counter-protest...in the form of a “kiss-in” by gay couples angry about remarks made by company president Dan Cathy.

Will it be as successful?

Boycotts have a revered place in American history as an effective form of protest, in large part because of the role they played in the civil rights movement.

Lately, however, the tactic’s record is much more spotty. Looking at one list of current boycotts, I don’t see many, if any, that I’d count as successful.

Now, a “kiss-in” isn’t exactly the same thing as a boycott; I have no idea how many of the reported 15,000 people nationwide who say they’re participating in today’s protest will buy a chicken sandwich while they’re there. But it is similar in that it’s an attempt to shame a company into a certain action by applying public pressure.

My own theory about this is that activists are reaching a point of diminishing returns when it comes to pressuring corporations, in large part because they have succeeded in pressuring many companies into some form of “corporate social responsibility.” ...

So according to my theory, even setting aside the Cathy family’s obvious and longtime commitment to their beliefs, a company like Chick-fil-A feels less pressure to acquiesce to one group’s demands because it can point to a long list of corporate “good behavior.” The company and its owners stood on higher moral ground, so to speak, to start with.

...

Just vote in the nearby poll and explain yourself in the comments thread below.

ADDED: I doubt this kind of action, while unrelated to kissing, will engender much sympathy for the cause of today’s protesters.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I don’t know what “success” would be for an event like this. I’m sure that those who go to Chick-Fil-A will successfully kiss each other. But what do they expect to accomplish?

1. Will gay kissing in public make people more sympathetic to the gay cause? That seems obviously not to me — the people who are uncomfortable with gays won’t be MORE comfortable confronted, and there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with public displays of affection who will be upset even if they aren’t against gays. I can’t think of any class of people who would look at two guys making out and say “you know, I thought that would be a bad thing, but now that I see it, it’s kind of cool.”

2. Will gays kissing scare people from the store? Well, maybe. But wouldn’t that prove that the public was, in fact, really against the whole idea of gay relationships? It would be like protesting against “cleanliness” laws by showing up without a shower in a month. You’d just prove why a cleanliness law was needed.

3. Will gays kissing attract people who like the idea of gays kissing? Probably not, but if it did, won’t those people then be buying food at Chick-Fil-A? Attracting a new class of people to the restaurant hardly seems like what their goal is.

4. Will they get someone to beat them up for their lewd behavior? OK, this might be the “success” they are looking for. But to get that success by doing something that most people would find offensive in any case, kind of seems like a wash to me. You get a thousand people who behave like boorish rubes, and you think the harm to your cause will be outweighed by one person having a natural reaction to the boorish behavior?

More likely, some parent is going to point out that there are kids in the restaurant, and that heavy make-out sessions are inappropriate in public. The people will probably call the parent names, it will be caught on video hopefully, and will just fuel the belief that gays are abherant and uncivil. Which most of them are NOT, but you’d never know because they don’t make a spectacle of themselves and are happy with the status quo.

[scottjewell]

Yep, all excellent points. fantastic