McDonald's boycott has social movement potential

People are finally starting to boycott McDonald's - but not for a good reason.

The newly-established McDonald's boycott isn't because it treats its employees poorly or because it serves food that rots you from the inside. No, those things actually make sense and would be great reasons to boycott McDonald's. We're dealing with a different type of boycott here. A select group of folks based in our neighboring state of Mississippi have chosen to boycott McDonald's because the chain "supports the gay agenda."

I know it's easy to just brush this off as another example of the religious right freaking out about something, but this little social movement is actually pretty interesting and may function as a litmus test for future American social movements.

This whole issue started in early 2008 when Richard Ellis, vice president of communications for McDonald's USA, took a seat on the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

The NGLCC is a non-profit organization that encourages and helps develop businesses owned by members of the LGBT community. While it is not an official government agency, though its name implies such, it does act as a middle man between gay and lesbian business owners and their local chamber of commerce.

It's pretty easy to see where this is going.

The American Family Association, a religious group based in Mississippi, took issue with this business deal because its members believe the McDonald's corporation is supporting the gay agenda.

The AFA, also a non-profit organization, is concerned with the preservation of the American family, so the rusty and broken-down chain of logic is obvious - homosexuals are bad people; McDonald's has someone on the board of an organization that helps homosexuals; thus McDonald's is also populated with bad people. Not because it makes bad food, but because it supports gay people.

The AFA has called for a national boycott of all McDonald's restaurants because, as posted in an article on its internally run Onenewsnow.com site, "The AFA took issue with McDonald's refusal to remain neutral in the culture war."

Currently the AFA is telling its members to boycott eating at McDonald's restaurants and to call their local franchises to inform the management staff of McDonald's secret plot to help out the gay community.

This isn't the first time the AFA has called for a boycott of a national corporation that supposedly supported the gay agenda. In 2006 the group called for a similar boycott of Wal-Mart that was scheduled to take place over the post-Thanksgiving shopping weekend.

When threatened with the loss of sales on Black Friday, Wal-Mart backed down and issued a statement confirming its neutrality on gay marriage. The AFA subsequently canceled the boycott.

They haven't canceled this one yet.

Through a letter sent to the AFA, McDonald's confirmed its commitment to diversity and has refused to back down.

It's crunch time for the AFA. Can they make the mighty McDonald's bow down?

Sure there are some faulty causal mechanisms at work here, and I'm honestly not sure who is putting together this so-called gay agenda, but this group has serious potential as a mechanism for social change.

In a column this past spring I wrote about the potential power of conservative Christians as a voting block. While my focus was on the political power of conservative Protestants, it's not the only possible outcome - this boycott could serve as a field test for the modern social power of religion.

Here in the U.S., that translates into the social power of conservative Christians.

By their sheer numbers conservative Christians represent a large portion of the U.S. population. According to the 2007 Pew National Trusts Survey on Religious Life, more than one quarter of U.S. citizens self-identify as evangelical Protestant - the group of denominations most commonly associated with conservative Christianity.

Conservative Christians are more than just evangelical Protestants and may self-identify with any denomination. However, they do frequently share beliefs on hot-button issues.

A unified belief on an issue can certainly serve as the glue for a social movement. In this circumstance the culture war against the gay agenda serves as a very strong bonding element. When combined with a large potential audience, you have the makings of an old-school social movement.

Their opponent, however, is a grease-spewing juggernaut that will be fairly difficult to topple.

That doesn't mean they can't have an effect though. After only a few weeks of threats the AFA got Wal-Mart, also a large and powerful corporation, to back down and claim neutrality - so there is precedent and potential.

Whether that potential will open us up to a new era of activism or condemn us to an oppressive theocracy is still up in the air.

New sins for Roman Catholics challenge social issues

The entire world was rocked off its axis three weeks ago when the Catholic Church announced a list of seven new sins.

OK, so maybe the world wasn't actually moved from the invisible line that keeps it upright, and maybe most University students didn't even blink at the announcement.

But the sins themselves have some rather interesting social repercussions and could signal a change in the direction of the Catholic Church and religion in the United States in general.

The new sins officially rolled out March 10 in the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, by Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, who is the head of the bureau in charge of sin and penance.

In the article, Girotti stated what he thought were the new sins for modern Catholics. Girotti started by expanding the definition of what Catholics considered sin and added in several new ones.

"You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos," Girotti said.

The sins, meant to accompany the original seven deadly sins issued in the 6th Century by Pope Gregory the Great, include bioethical violations, morally dubious experiments, drug abuse, pollution and social issues such as the expansion of the wealth gap and the creation of poverty.

Catholics stratify their sins between mortal and venial sins. Venial sins are minor sins, which on their own, do not condemn one's soul to eternal damnation. Mortal sins, including the seven newly-minted sins, are serious business and can keep one from entering heaven without proper repentance.

The first few sins are just official codification of previously held beliefs.

For example, abortion and the use of birth control - forbidden in the Humanae Vitae but never officially made a sin - can be easily filed under "Bioethical Violations" and stem cell research or human cloning would undoubtedly be a case of morally dubious experiments.

These sins are not surprising.

Other sins, such as drug abuse and pollution, are sins that bring the Church up to date on hot button issues. These two issues have only been big issues for the past 30 years, so these sins aren't that surprising either.

The sins that are surprising are the ones concerning issues that are social in nature - namely the Church's crusade against poverty.

The fight against poverty is not a strange concept to Catholics. Mission work into impoverished areas of the world has been a mainstay of the church for several years now.

Furthermore, the Catholic Church has always taken a stance against excessive wealth. Most clergy are required to take a vow of poverty upon entering religious life and are restricted from holding certain earthly possessions. While the clergy may not hold steadfast to this vow, they are still required to make it.

Outside of the clergy, however, no formal law regarding poverty or excessive wealth had been put into place by the Catholic Church, which raises the question: Why these laws, and why now?

These sins, mostly social in nature, may represent an attempt by the Catholic Church to regain some its flock.

A 2008 Pew National study indicates the percentage of Americans self-identifying as Catholic is down drastically. While one of three Americans surveyed was born into the Catholic faith, only one of four Americans currently self-identifies as Catholic.

The Catholic Church isn't losing ground to any faith in particular, either. The same Pew National study also found the group with the largest increase in population were those Americans self-identifying as unaffiliated. The religious landscape in the U.S. is more dynamic than ever, and with numbers decreasing rapidly, the Church may see these new sins as a way to attract some of those undecided congregants into their flock.

By preaching against excessive wealth and income disparity, the Church also takes a shot at the growing evangelical Christian population. The Evangelical doctrine of prosperity theology that preaches wealth as a reward for doing God's work stands in stark contrast to the Catholic Church's new social sins.

That's not to say that evangelical Protestants are against mission work. It's quite the contrary; evangelical churches spend a great deal of time and effort ministering in foreign nations.

But the doctrine of wealth through the work of God sends a message that is antithetical to the recent expansion of Catholic dogma.

Protestants aren't without their own new sins, however. Shortly after the Catholic Church's announcement of new sins, the Southern Baptists Convention issued their own statement on the perils of environmental destruction.

It seems everyone is taking a stand on social issues these days, and while the message they deliver can be debated, the fact that organized religion is paying attention to social issues will certainly bring them more coverage - and hopefully some progress, too.


Originally published in The Daily Reveille...