Chik-Fil-A, Money and Jesus. And No, I Won't Give It A Rest

So I wrote on the sensitive subject of recent fast-food controversy, and I challenged the founders of the franchise. Since then, I’ve been "reminded" of three things:1. It’s not fair to compare the struggle for gay equality to that of racial equality. Gay people are sinning, black people weren’t.2. It’s not a sin to be rich, and in fact it’s what God wants for us.3. My blog is supposed to be about violence against women and children, so I should take up another point.The remainder of those who disagree with me really just want me to give it a rest.That won’t happen. No one, God willing, will give this a rest. And by “this” I don’t mean the Chik-Fil-A controversy. “This” isn’t about a restaurant, any more than racial equality was about lunch counters (they were restaurants, too, where offensive things happened). People didn’t like it. They made a big fuss. It went on and on. Until things changed.Instead of resting I’ll answer the questions posed to me and others like me:1. The secular law will never have an opinion on whether gay people are "sinning" by living in same-sex relationships. This is by the nature of a government we fought a revolution to form and untold amounts of blood and treasure to preserve. I seek no blessing of same-sex marriage by any religion. I seek equality under the law.2. I singled out the billionaire Cathy brothers, founders of Chik-Fil-A, because they spend millions of dollars on attempting to make the lives of others more difficult through support of groups who seek to prevent equal rights for those others. Period. Not for what they believe. For what they do. With buckets of fast-food profits.Sally Ride left behind a partner of 27 years who gets nothing in Federal benefits, thanks in part to the efforts of organizations the Cathy brothers pour money into. That seems cruel to me, religious beliefs aside, and so, believing them to be not cruel I assumed the Cathy's do what they do because they feel Biblically commanded, regardless of the objectively unfortunate consequences of their financial exertions. For that reason I encouraged them to, perhaps, consider attempting to follow another command of Jesus, one I’ve been aggressively told I have taken “out of context.” Because wealth is just another blessing, and Jesus wants us to have it.Sell that to someone who is buying it, because I am not. If His words aren’t good enough, at least look at His life, to the extent we can: He didn’t own much of anything.I don’t believe it’s sin to be wealthy. I don’t believe it’s what God wants for us either. I think it just is. And I think that using it to harm others, to make their lives harder to simply live in an already vicious and unpredictable world, is a far greater sin than loving someone for decades and caring for them while they endure pancreatic cancer.And so I challenged the Cathy brothers and I challenge them again: Give it away, boys. Happily keep 50, 60, even a 100 million if you want. Is that not  “blessing” enough? Give the other 4.49 billion to help eradicate the sea of misery around you.3. Yes, this blog is about, among other things, children. And violence that stalks them. Often, that violence comes from within. Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered youth (LGBT) commit suicide in numbers 4 to 6 times greater than straight youth, in large part because all three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) in their stricter forms, reject what these youth discover themselves becoming.Due to that rejection, they are far more likely to be thrown out of those same religious homes and tossed, alone and marginalized, into a world far darker and more violent than most are willing to accept.  They’re victimized on the streets, in the brothels, the bars, the bus stations, the alleyways, and the cold, dead farm fields.They’re children, or damn close to it. I’ve written about them before. I’ll do it again. That’s my job. As far as I’m concerned, the job of the Cathy brothers and all who are similarly “blessed” is at very least to do them no further harm.