Media Combine Attacks on Chick-fil-A with Food Police Advocacy

The recent manufactured controversy over Chick-fil-A has allowed media figures on the left to combine two of their favorite pastimes: serving as self-appointed food police and attacking supporters of traditional marriage.

Television commentators and print writers have taken the recent furor over Chick-fil-A’s corporate stance on gay marriage to complain about the unhealthy quality of Chick-fil-A’s food.

In a interview with former Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis (who is openly gay) about his struggles with HIV, CNN’s Piers Morgan injected a question about the Chick-fil-A controversy, strangely arguing that “Mike Huckabee has come out today, ordering Christians to go and eat at Chick-fil-A to make a statement.” (Morgan’s definition of “ordering” appears to be somewhat flawed.)

Louganis responded with a shot at the quality of Chick-fil-A’s food: “Who eats that stuff? I mean really, who eats that stuff? I mean I kind of like my arteries, you know, I like my blood flowing.” Morgan filled in Louganis’s thought: “So you shouldn’t be going to Chick-fil-A just on health grounds.”

MSNBC contributor D.L. Hughley went further, bizarrely linking Obamacare, Chick-fil-A, and his desire to see unhealthy conservatives: “The great thing for me is that I hope conservatives eat Chick-fil-A every day and they’ll appreciate the Obamacare program.”

Snide attacks on Chick-fil-A’s lack of nutritional value were not confined to television. Philly.com’s Michael Yudell seized the occasion to opine: “if Chick-fil-A really wants to have “a positive influence” on its customers, it needs to immediately remake the menu by decreasing the caloric, salt, fat, and sugar content of indulgent menu items.” (This came after Yudell admitted his favorite meal at Chick-fil-A was a “Deluxe Chicken Sandwich, large waffle fires dipped in Polynesian sauce, a side salad with Caesar dressing, and a large lemonade.”)

In a July 24 column, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank bizarrely calculated: “As of lunchtime Tuesday, Huckabee’s Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day already had 100,000 RSVPs. If each of those people buys the Deluxe Chicken Sandwich meal (1,080 calories) and tops that off with a brownie sundae (590 calories), the weight gain associated with Huckabee’s effort could be about 50,000 pounds.”

Of course, not everyone who went to Chick-fil-A ordered the fried meal Milbank suggests. Chick-fil-A has healthier options on the menu, and is considered to be one of the les unhealthy fast food joints. (Who goes to a fast food joint for healthy food, anyway?) Besides, not everyone came to Chick-fil-A for the food – one bigoted Chick-fil-A protestor even ordered “free water” as he berated a Chick-fil-A employee for belonging to such a hateful company.

The media is not shy about advocating stricter food police measures. The Chick-fil-A controversy just gave a few members of the media another manufactured excuse to do so.