If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve probably heard about Dan Piepenbring’s absurd piece about Chick-Fil-A in the New Yorker last week. After all, it’s being very thoroughly lampooned by folks on the right. And deservedly so. More than anything else, the piece reminds of a classic episode of NewsRadio where New York radio personality Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman) is stuck in a midwestern airport. But whereas Hartman expertly hams up the elitist bigotry for comedic effect, Piepenbring seems wholly serious.
But at amusing as it is, the important takeaway isn’t the fact that there’s yet another coastal leftist hipster jumping the shark on snobbery. Piepenbring is entirely transparent about the reasons he doesn’t want Chick-Fil-A in his town:
The brand’s arrival here feels like an infiltration, in no small part because of its pervasive Christian traditionalism. Its headquarters, in Atlanta, are adorned with Bible verses and a statue of Jesus washing a disciple’s feet. Its stores close on Sundays. Its C.E.O., Dan Cathy, has been accused of bigotry for using the company’s charitable wing to fund anti-gay causes, including groups that oppose same-sex marriage.
He hates Chick-Fil-A because he hates Christians. It really isn’t any more complicated than that. And it’s not particularly new or rare, either. Liberals have been consistently uncomfortable with the fast-food chain for a long time now.
But we already knew all that, so why bring it up?
Because any conservative who still thinks talk of a national divorce is overblown needs to ask themselves a simple question: If leftist bigots are disgusted even with the idea of Christians selling chicken sandwiches, exactly what place do you think they’ll allow us to occupy in society when they’re in charge?
They do not disagree with us; they want to annihilate us. That makes this an existential conflict. We need to treat it like one while we still have the freedom to do something about it.
