Sarah Palin Joins Chick-fil-A Debate: Unsurprisingly, She Supports ‘Chikin’
Sarah Palin decided to grab a chicken sandwich and enter the controversial debate surrounding chicken-slinging fast food restaurant Chick-fil-A on Friday, tweeting her support for the company and posting a pic 0f herself with a takeout bag on Facebook, surprising absolutely no one.
Palin showed her support for Chick-fil-A late Friday night, grabbing a bite and calling the restaurant a “great business,” reports the Huffington Post. She later posted a photo to her Facebook in which the former Alaskan governor gives a “thumbs up” alongside husband Todd Palin, both holding Chick-fil-A “to go” bags.
Palin’s supportive Chick-fil-A tweet showed an extraordinarily vitriolic response among her Twitter followers, reports Mediaite. “You get extra homophobe sauce on your sandwich,” asked one follower. “You check for gays first,” inquired another follower. “F**k both you & Chick fil-a! Hateful ignorant a**es,” noted yet another concerned citizen. Chick-fil-A controversy notwithstanding, how could you really be surprised that Palin is choosing to support the company? And why are you following her in the first place?
Her Facebook photo proved far more popular, showing roughly 260,000 likes as of this posting.
Stopped by Chick-fil-A in The Woodlands to support a great business. fb.me/KM9ogGda
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) July 28, 2012
The controversy surrounding Chick-fil-A’s stance on gay marriage very quickly became political, with divided reactions all across the board. Big name political figures the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee have clearly taken sides in the debate, and the mayors of several cities, including Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, have said that they will work to keep Chick-fil-A out of their cities. “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values,” wrote Emanuel.
(I have my own opinions about so-called “Chicago values,” but that is for another time)
There have been some surprises in the debate, particularly New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s defense of Chick-fil-A, despite his own personal support of gay marriage. He said that “trampling on the freedom to marry whoever you want is exactly the same as trampling on your freedom to open a store.” The ACLU has also kind-of sort-of defended Chick-fil-A on the basis of first amendment rights.
Sarah Palin’s support of Chick-fil-A simply isn’t one of those surprises.
