National Chick-Fil-A Day

So today, the first day of August, which supposedly was "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day". To "celebrate", my mother and I, amongst a few others joined together to protest in front of the restaurant.

At first there were only a quiet few, but as time went on, some more people chipped in and chanted with us. We stood tall and proud with our signs and flag as we screamed in joy to the people honking their horns as they passed by. But unfortunately, the reactions we got weren't all positive.

CFA's customers began to yell at us and tease us because of what we were doing. One woman held out her Chick-Fil-A cup to my mother and said, "Hey! You want some water?!", trying to get her to hold the cup. Some kids, younger than me were yelling something like, "Eat more chicken, not rainbows!"

And that's not all! The protest ended with some nasty, dirty, man who was missing teeth trying to start a fight with one of us. His tone was very insulting with his rude homophobic remarks. We tried to get rid of him, but when he spit on my mom, I lost it. I shouted and screamed at him and he spit on me as well.

I started to cry my face off. At that moment I felt so powerless. The people who we were protesting with helped calm me down with hugs and saying nice things. But it's not the fact that I was spit on that makes me upset, it's how much hatred people can carry in their hearts against innocent people.

All we were doing, was fighting for what's right and what is fair. Chick-Fil-A is not about the food anymore. People aren't eating there because of that at all. Now, it's just become some ignorant symbol against the GLBT community. What really sickens me is that their customers KNOW that. They know where their money is going to, and it's just so wrong... Even the cops were "teaming up" with their customers! They threatened to arrest the one protester who was just defending himself verbally against the rude people.

What also bothers me is seeing on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., how many people showed up there only to have pride in "standing up for what's right". So many people... Who knows how much money they made, I'm scared to death on what the results would be.

With what happened tonight I feel pride in my heart. Being part of something like this has made me feel stronger. Not only do I believe with all my heart, mind and soul that their needs to be equality, but I KNOW for a FACT that it needs to happen. It's the right thing.

It sucks how history repeats itself with fighting for what is fair and right, but I hope on Friday, when we'll protest again, that something will happen.

I am so happy to be a part of something so supportive...