Millennials Are Killing Hooters

I read it on the internet, so it must be true: Millennials are Killing Hooters.

Good for them. Good for everyone if Hooters collapses and closes.

There was an episode of "Undercover Boss" a while back that showed a Hooters manager lining waitresses up to "inspect the merchandise" and demean them. But nobody really needs a reality tv series to prove that Hooters is about treating waitresses as objects.

The Bible sometimes describes cities destroyed because of their awful sins becoming ruins that remind anyone who sees them that God is just and will punish evil. Maybe Millennials are killing Hooters, but maybe God is destroying it as an example. Everyone who profits off the degradation of others should take note.

Strip clubs? Pornography? You don't need an advanced degree to figure out what God thinks of those things. You already know. God hates it.

No little girl wants to work at a strip club when she grows up, and no parent wants their child to grow up to be prey for pornographers.

There is nothing good about the "free choice" to be demeaned, degraded, and exploited, gawked at and harassed. Human dignity is more important. True freedom is the good life, which I guarantee you isn't happening at the strip club. True freedom is a better world. True freedom is a community and relationships of equals, without exploitation.

Every one of these businesses has an owner who is making money off from women being treated like things. Those owners ought to be worried about what God thinks of how they "earn" their living (more honestly, how they exploit and steal from someone else's degrading work). All over the Bible, we hear the refrain to people who think they're in control and can manipulate people under them: you're not at the top, and you ought to fear the one who is.

But don't think that God is anti-Hooters because he's uptight or anti-fun. Not at all. God is anti-lust because women are human beings. A couple years ago, the movie "Mad Max: Fury Road" put it well: "We are not things". God will hold accountable anyone who treats women like things.

I am glad that Hooters is teetering on collapse. I am glad for the women who work there as waitresses and receive only a fraction of what store owners make off of their mistreatment. I am glad the store's temptation to sin for many will be gone. And I am glad for the owners too. It is much better for them to lose a little money now and stop sinning than to keep it up until God's judgment comes.

To all who demean women to make money: God will not leave your sin unpunished. If your "establishment" is run into the ground now, that's good. But if it keeps going, know that God is just giving you more time to repent. God wants to give you grace and forgiveness if you repent. But judgment will come if you don't.

A version of this article was originally published Aug. 31, 2018 in the Capital Journal.