When Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy stated his support for traditional marriage last week, it set off a firestorm of public debate.
In just a few hours, the battle lines had been drawn - in cyberspace. Tens of thousands of commenters on websites such as the Huffington Post and Chick-fil-A's Facebook page either vowed to boycott the Atlanta-based purveyor of chicken sandwiches or pledged to support them.
Public protests, demonstrations and boycotts are time-honoured ways in which we express our views, but in the digital age, much of the action has moved from the streets to the computer screen. Almost everyone is just a tweet, a comment or a blog post away from social activism.
"Social media is the great equalizer," said Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics of Emory University.
"It gives people who are otherwise relatively voiceless an enormous advantage in communicating with the public." But taking a protest online has drawbacks. While anyone with a Facebook page can start a protest, getting others to take up your cause isn't always easy.
"Social media is still in information overload," Wolpe said.
"In the old days, you were competing for resources. Now what you are competing for is attention." If you are the protestee, when social media is the medium, the debate can rage on long after a concession has been made.
Four days into the uproar, Chick-fil-A posted a statement on Facebook reiterating the company's commitment to treating every person with "honour, dignity and respect - regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender." The statement went on to say the company in the future planned to "leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena." But the comments are still flowing in.
It wasn't so long ago that a similar type of online protest contributed to real-life change. Weeks after a post describing a policy at Susan G. Komen for the Cure that would de-fund some Planned Parenthood centres went viral, Karen Handel, senior vice-president for public policy, resigned.
While it isn't likely that the Chick-fil-A protest will put the company out of business, it has succeeded in inciting public discourse in the U.S.
Jamal Jackson, 34, of Snellville, Georgia, a drummer at Union Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, turned to Facebook to express his views because he thought Chick-fil-A was being attacked. "Every company has their core beliefs and their value system," Jackson said.
"Whenever someone speaks out about an alternative lifestyle, they are bullied to believe what others believe. I was really concerned." Jackson shares Cathy's belief in traditional marriage and said as much in his Facebook comment.
Sometimes online protests can lead to offline action. Doria Roberts and her wife, Calavino Donati, owners of the East Atlanta eatery Urban Cannibals, saw the Chick-fil-A controversy as an opportunity to give a human face to an issue by hosting a "Two Chicks-fil-A" brunch at their restaurant Sunday (Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed Sundays).
"It is important to come out of the Internet and show people there are really people behind these things that people are saying," Roberts said. "It is very important to add a human element to any movement. It is hard to hate somebody when you are looking right at them." In addition to the brunch, they are adding chicken sandwiches to their permanent menu - on Sundays.
