Cracker Barrel

A friend recently asked me if I'd eaten at Cracker Barrel before. I said I had, a long time ago, when I was a teen, but that I had boycotted them for a long time. He asked why, and I said because of their anti-gay policies. I knew that they had later added sexual orientation to their anti-discrimination policy, so I no longer boycott them. I haven't been there in a long time not because of that issue, but because it's my impression that they don't offer a lot to vegetarians.

I seem to recall some racial discrimination incidents being publicized as well, but at least it wasn't an *official* policy to discriminate on the basis of race. Why a person of color would want to work at CRACKER Barrel is beyond me, anyway.

Here's a commentary from The Nation that explains the background on the anti-gay thing and why I was boycotting, but am not now.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030210/badgett

65 pregnant girls change school's mind about abstinence-only sex ed

Found via birthcontrol
http://community.livejournal.com/birthcontrol/3504460.html

Stetson Kennedy and Superman against the Ku Klux Klan

I found out about Stetson Kennedy while reading "Freakonomics". Last night, I was telling dionysus1999 how he exposed the Klan's secret codes, hand-shakes, etc. through the Superman radio show, basically making a mockery of their solemn rituals.

According to this wiki entry, he overhyped how much of the infiltration he did himself and conflated some doings of other civil rights advocates with his own personal contribution, but I still think he did a super-cool thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stetson_Kennedy

Exerpt:
While allegedly undercover in the Klan, [Kennedy] also provided information - including secret codewords and details of Klan rituals - to the writers of the Superman radio program. The result was a series of four episodes in which Superman took on the Klan. Kennedy intended to strip away the Klan's mystique, and the trivialization of the Klan's rituals and codewords likely had a negative impact on Klan recruiting and membership.

(It kind of reminds me of the "Chinpokomon" episode of South Park where the parents pretend to be all into Chinpokomon so their kids will think it's uncool and stop buying the stuff.)