Chick-Fil-A is known as the pro-traditional marriage, pro-Sabbath day restaurant. Badges of honor in my book. In the interest of entertaining the claim “culture is downstream from power,” one I believe was first made by rightwing author and YouTuber Academic Agent, as truer than Andrew Breitbart’s more well-known quip “politics is downstream from culture,” in my strange mind there is no better institution to use as an illustration than the “Christian chicken” empire itself.
Apologies for the humble-brag, but even as a non-frequenter of fast-food drive-thrus, it’s still not controversial for me to claim that Chick-Fil-A is the most efficient. “The government should run like a Chick-Fil-A drive-thru” meme comes to mind. However, despite this claim to fame, there doesn’t seem to be much urgency among the other chains to be more like Chick-Fil-A. Being less efficient while maintaining complete rainbow acceptance is fine by them. This is obviously not a perfect analogy, but in this example Chick-Fil-A superiority is not trickling down into the politics of its landscape.
Now imagine that the “Chick-fil-A Law” is passed. All businesses, perhaps with the exclusion of medical services, are required to be closed on Sunday. In our current materialist malaise something like this would take much getting used to. One of many results would be the revival of the American Family Dinner Table Conversation. Remembering my own experiences with this old American stalwart, I’m struck by the lasting wholesomeness. Sure, there were disagreements, arguments even, but there was a certain togetherness present during even the most tense moments; in fact, these moments perhaps did more to foster family unity than the more lighthearted ones.
Whether the time spent was lighthearted or constructively tense, the point was that the time was available, something severely lacking in today’s society. Time and togetherness naturally results in a better understanding of daily happenings—of what goes on at school, what’s happening with friends, and even what’s being discovered on that screen. And a better understanding naturally leads to taking a greater interest in these goings on— “Wait, they’re teaching you what?” “She identifies as a what?” “The show is about what?”
The combination of better understanding and greater interest, as well as the unfortunate as well as nefarious answers to the subsequent questions above, brings about a certain important realization: walls of protection need to be built. That protecting your kids from predatory behavior is not being a helicopter parent but rather being a good parent. And in return, your child might better understand and even appreciate your protection once your presence increases, even if its beginning point is a newly passed law.
Would the culture make a drastic change as a result of a Chick-fil-A Law? Likely not immediately. But gradual change would almost certainly result. Think about this way: a switch from “I’m removing my child from this school” might change to “People like that should be barred from teaching in our schools.” Both of these statements are necessary in certain situations, but the latter has more power, both in a law backing it up as well as in its ability to move the cultural needle further to the right.
Of course, I know what the retort is to this proposition: “You can’t legislate morality, it never works that way.” To which I would reply, “They’ve certainly done a good job of legislating immorality.” But if that’s not a good enough counter for you, think instead of the Chick-fil-A Law as not legislating morality but rather building a necessary wall that prevents certain immoralities, such as predators and predatory behavior, from invading. Seems like our current culture could use some of these walls.
Amen.