The recent hotbed for debate has been the ugly and confusing roundabout of remarks surrounding the Chick-fil-a restaurant chain. As usual, I have my criticisms for both sides of the issue, but this week I award the most impressive form of bigotry to some of the liberals. More specifically, to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Earlier this week, Mayor Menino was quoted as saying:
“Chick-fil-A doesn’t belong in Boston. You can’t have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population. We’re an open city, we’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. First of all, Chick-fil-a as a whole for the consumer does not discriminate against gay people. The employees are not chasing gay people out of the doors or refusing service to same-sex couples. There aren’t any signs on the restaurant windows saying that “If you look or act gay, we will refuse to serve you”. We are talking about the remarks of one individual, Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-a. Sure, the company has contributed money to socially conservative groups that endorse traditional marriage, but it’s their money, and they are free to do what they want with it.
The rouge comments of Cathy cannot and should not result in a mayor or local politician campaigning for a business to not be able to open within the city limits of Boston. Someone like Menino may claim that they are standing up for “liberty”, but all he is doing is perverting the true, consistent nature of what American liberty really is. Don’t get me wrong here. If a socially liberal president of a company criticized mainstream American Christianity in rouge fashion, and a small town in the Bible Belt swore to outlaw his business from coming to their town, I would vehemently condemn the actions of that small town as well. I, unlike Mayor Menino, am not letting my emotions take the best of me. I want to defend the purest form of liberty possible. It’s a consistent form of liberty. Liberty does not allow for personal bias to come and go at will. That is absolutely dangerous. What Menino is trying to do isn’t about freedom at all, it’s about having more government regulation, more government making decisions, and more government getting involved in economic endeavors in light of an emotionally-charged, irrelevant comment made by Cathy. Menino’s actions are a slippery slope to terrible things that could be abused by either a liberal or conservative government.
So yes, Mayor Menino, You are a bigot. I am sorry to say, but it is people like you that cannot even begin to understand what true Constitutional liberty consists of. In a situation like this, the free market should always decide the outcome, not a local Mayor with a skewed, biased view of liberty. That’s garbage. If Chick-fil-a did post signs denying all people who might “look or act gay” to leave their restaurants or not come in to be served, you would be in the right. But that is not the situation. If people want to act in protest by not going to Chick-fil-a restaurants, that is perfectly fine. People should do what they want with their money. So, Mayor Menino, grab a copy of the Constitution and learn to apply the American concepts of liberty consistently across all disciplines. Learning to apply the doctrine of liberty consistently is the only way that social and economic freedom will survive in this country, and people like Mayor Menino are a hindrance to the flourishing of American freedom.