In the wake of the Chick-fil-A controversy, one of the ways the pro-gay-marriage side is fighting back is through the “National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-Fil-A” taking place today.
Another way to fight back is to follow the (half-joking) advice of YouTuber Jackson Pearce: Go to Chick-fil-A and ask for a glass of water, which they will give you for free (it’s the Biblical thing to do!), so you’re essentially taking money from them…
(It would be even better if people bought food at KFC and handed it out to homeless people or something… You know, whatever Christians say Jesus would do while they go stuff themselves with some chikin.)
Anyway, Arizona native Adam M. Smith went to a Chick-fil-A drive-thru this week to get the free water. But that wasn’t all. He also lashed out at the employee who served him for the faults of the company and its COO… as if she had anything to do with the matter.
And he videotaped the whole thing:
*sigh*
As I watched that, I just felt bad for the employee. She handled the situation perfectly — she did her job, remained as neutral as possible, and tried to explain how the company didn’t discriminate against gay customers (which is true)… meanwhile, Smith came off as a heartless bully (“I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here”). If Chick-fil-A has a problem, this employee had nothing to do with it and he’s wrongly taking his anger out on her. She showed far more class than he did.
If you’re a Chick-fil-A employee who supports gay rights (I don’t know if this particular employee does or not), then you’ve had a shitty week. You had to serve Christians who cheer the fact that they’re standing in the way of gay rights… and you had to deal with liberals who wrongly assume you must share the owners’ beliefs.
Anyway, here’s where it gets a little more complicated:
Smith is the CFO/Treasurer of a medical equipment manufacturing company called Vante… and after seeing the video, Vante fired him:
The actions of Mr. Smith do not reflect our corporate values in any manner. Vante is an equal opportunity company with a diverse workforce, which holds diverse opinions. We respect the right of our employees and all Americans to hold and express their personal opinions, however, we also expect our company officers to behave in a manner commensurate with their position and in a respectful fashion that conveys these values of civility with others.
Vante is privately-owned so you could say they have a right to do that… but it seems pretty harsh when a public apology from Smith would probably have sufficed (“I apologize for embarrassing myself and my company…”).
Smith is also an adjunct lecturer at the University of Arizona and they’ve taken down his webpage. One email source told me they’ve asked for his resignation (or they may not be inviting him back), but I can’t confirm that. If true, the university could be putting itself in legal jeopardy. Just because an employee is a jerk outside of work doesn’t seem like solid grounds for terminating employment.
Just to make things worse, a lot of crazy people online think Smith’s personal information needs to be paraded about online (not at that link), which is also dumb. He’s already suffering from the blowback of his video, as he should. Like anyone else, he doesn’t deserve to get email threats.
By the way, when someone told Jackson Pearce what Smith had done (possibly) based on her advice, she wasn’t too thrilled about it:
