Only in America would we politicize a chicken sandwich.

I opened up my Facebook feed Monday morning. A post on a local Republican page I follow was calling for a boycott against Chick-fil-A, which I believed was a sacred cow of the GOP.

When I covered a local Trump re-election kickoff watch party at a church in Lakewood in June, Chick-fil-A, of course, was on the menu. Just last month, when Republicans stormed the House impeachment committee hearings and refused to leave, Colorado Springs’ U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn showed up with “relief supplies,” two bags of Chick-fil-A. 

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Just two years ago Christianity Today characterized the brand loyalty to the fast-food company as a “cult,” citing a then-recent poll that found 62% of evangelicals considered Chick-fil-A to have a positive impact on their community. The late Billy Graham in 2012 put on his stamp of approval after Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy said he didn’t support same-sex marriages and gave money to political efforts viewed by progressive activists as hostile to LGBTQ rights. 

My Democratic friend Michal Rosenoer, the Edgewater City Council member and executive director of Emerge Colorado, calls it “bigotry bird.”

I’ve felt the social pressures. I hope my liberal friends don’t see me in the drive-thru. I smuggle my sandwich and unsalted waffle fries into the Capitol to avoid making a political statement. I stash the evidence of my PC crime in Marianne Goodland’s trash can.

Now some Republicans have soured on it, too.

They’re feasting on Chick-fil-A’s $2,500 donation in 2017 to the Southern Poverty Law Center among more than 300 recipients that year.

The Alabama-based organization takes on hate groups, and that includes some Christian conservative organizations that stridently oppose abortion rights and open borders.

“To fund those who hate your customers is just sad,” Sen. Ted Cruz, the Christian conservative from Texas, tweeted the night before Thanksgiving.

The brouhaha coincided when Chick-fil-A dropping the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Salvation Army from its corps of charities. They received $1.65 million and $115,000 in 2018, respectively, as part of multi-year deals.

On Nov. 20 the company announced its plan to give away $9 million next year with a focus on education, homelessness and hunger, including $25,000 to the local food bank every time it opens a new restaurant. As Jesus fed the multitude with loaves and fishes, Chick-fil-A will do the same with corporate profits.

The cardinal sin in politics, however, is covered in Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” To suggest any Christian belongs to a hate group is too much to swallow in our society of constant outrage.

Both sides seem to think they have a stake in my chicken. Other than my cardiologist, it’s nobody else’s business. 

There’s a Chick-fil-A near my house, and since my heart attack last year, grilled chicken is a staple of my diet. Before that, the Colonel’s bucket was my jam, but the teenagers who staff the KFC along my drive home had a record of leaving out a side. While I can live with anybody’s politics, I can’t live without gravy on my mashed potatoes. At Chick-fil-A they remember my name and no pickles.

Moreover, the sodium grenade in the extra-crispy sandwich is finger-lickin’ deadly, and KFC doesn’t stand for kholesterol-free chicken. How has Colonel Sanders escaped the political correctness time bomb? I mean, look at him.

Last year, after some of his own ill-advised talk on the white side, Papa John’s founder John Schnatter said the late Colonel was a user of the N-word. 

Harland Sanders’ grandson called the pizza man a lying weasel. He said the $20 million his grandfather gave away in his lifetime tilted to the poor and underprivileged, including the black churches the chicken baron sometimes attended.

Schnatter resigned and Shaquille O’Neal, the company’s first black board member, became Big Papa’s TV pitchman.

Chicken isn’t the only dish to cross this road. Wendy’s is facing a boycott, because it hasn’t signed onto an agreement that requires tomato growers to protect their workers from sexual harassment other abuses in the field. McDonald’s is facing a boycott in India for allegedly failing to prepare its meat in accordance to Muslim law, though the company denies the charge.

The pushback from the left has hardly left a dent in Chick-fil-A’s remarkable growth the last seven years, but the slapback for the ages was in California last year. The state Democratic Party put out a call to arms over the $25,000 In-N-Out Burger donated to the state GOP. Who could have expected such from a neon-lit burger chain operated by born-again Christians that prints Bible verses on its cups and wrappers. (“But love ye your enemies, and do good,” a burger once instructed me.)

California, not the most conservative state, put patties over politics, and the boycott blew over without damage.

The value-signaling of lunch comes from the chain of thought that spending money represents free speech.

“They’re ashamed of us,” spoke a Republican to his fellow Springs conservatives and me on Facebook. “They’re ashamed of those who stood by them and showered them in money when the Left attacked. It’s hard to imagine a worse betrayal.

“Chick-fil-A is officially the enemy. I won’t enter one again.”

Not all Republicans agree. In the string of comments, several made the inescapable point: It’s a sandwich, not a chalice of war.

“Chick-fil-A is a franchise corporation, and the guy that owns the franchise by my house is a good, honest, family man who does an excellent job at making tasty food that I want to eat,” one presumed local Republican replied. “I will do absolutely nothing to send a message if I stop patronizing his business.”