The Scrapbook is well aware that politics sometimes informs consumer choices. Good progressives used to avoid Welch’s candies because its owner was the founder of the John Birch Society. And The Scrapbook admits to resisting the temptation of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream when it thinks of Ben and Jerry and their brand of granola socialism.
So a recent trend among progressive mayors is not exactly news, but startling nonetheless: The mayors of Chicago, Boston, New York, and other metropolises have urged their constituents to boycott Chick-fil-A, the cheery fast-food outlet whose president once expressed his opposition to gay marriage. Boston, said its current mayor, one Marty Walsh, doesn’t “need a company . . . that discriminates against anyone.”
As it happens, Chick-fil-A doesn’t do business in Boston, and may not even intend to do so. But Mayor Walsh has hinted that, if Chick-fil-A does seek a permit to open a franchise in Boston, he may raise procedural roadblocks. He has the power to do so, of course, and may even succeed, but His Honor would do well to consider the predicament of his fellow left-wing mayor, Bill de Blasio, in New York. De Blasio is equally contemptuous of Chick-fil-A—”I’m certainly not going to patronize them, and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them”—but those “other” New Yorkers have put him in a quandary: Chick-fil-A already has several outlets in New York, and their immense popularity seems to increase with every de Blasio blast.
The Scrapbook makes no particular claim for Chick-fil-A. As with anything of its kind, Chick-fil-A is a matter of taste, and if your taste runs to savory fast-food chicken delivered with ostentatious politeness, then Chick-fil-A might be to your taste. What is not a matter of taste, however, is the fact that Chick-fil-A is very popular with consumers, including consumers in New York, and its outlets employ a number of New Yorkers as well.
No matter what you may think of its president’s views on marriage equality—views expressed, incidentally, at a time when Barack Obama opposed gay marriage as well—Chick-fil-A has a reputation as a generous employer, serves loyal customers of all sexual orientations, and, most important, fills an evident need for Bill de Blasio’s constituents. Is it really appropriate for elected officials—armed with the power to harass and destroy—to take sides among products, to attack law-abiding businesses, and to threaten the employment of industrious constituents? Unlike Mayor de Blasio, after all, Chick-fil-A has a proven knack for pleasing New Yorkers.
