Who's up for more Chick-fil-A related goings-ons?

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Mayor Bloomberg of New York City absolutely drives us nuts with his nanny state ways but with respect to the Chick-fil-A controversy he has been spot on:

Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show on WOR that it is inappropriate for a government entity "to look at somebody's political views and decide whether or not they can live in the city, or opehrate a business in the city, or work for somebody in the city."

The billionaire businessman-turned-politician was asked about comments from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee criticizing Chick-fil-A.

Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy angered gay-rights advocates, including the mayors, when he said the company was "guilty as charged" for backing "the biblical definition of a family." He later added, "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, `We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.'"

Emanuel said "Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values," and Menino wrote in a letter to Cathy: "There is no place for discrimination on Boston's Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it."

Lee tweeted Thursday: "Closest (hash)ChickFilA to San Francisco is 40 miles away & I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer."
Bloomberg said Menino, Emanuel and Lee are "really are good mayors" but "trampling on the freedom to marry whoever you want is exactly the same as trampling on your freedom to open a store."

Richard Socarides, a New York lawyer and former Clinton White House adviser on gay rights who is urging a boycott of Chick-fil-A, said Bloomberg is right.

And as expected, Mark Steyn hits it out of the park:

As an exercise in sheer political muscle, it’s impressive. But, if you’re a feminist or a gay or any of the other house pets in the Democrat menagerie, you might want to look at Rahm Emanuel’s pirouette, and Menino’s coziness with Islamic homophobia. These guys are about power, and right now your cause happens to coincide with their political advantage. But political winds shift. Once upon a time, Massachusetts burned witches. Now it grills chicken-sandwich homophobes. One day it’ll be something else. Already in Europe, in previously gay-friendly cities like Amsterdam, demographically surging Muslim populations have muted leftie politicians’ commitment to gay rights, feminism, and much else. It’s easy to cheer on the thugs when they’re thuggish in your name. What happens when Emanuel’s political needs change?

Americans talk more about liberty than citizens of other Western nations, but, underneath the rhetorical swagger, liberty bleeds. When Mayor Menino and Alderman Moreno openly threaten to deny business licenses because of ideological apostasy, they’re declaring their unfitness for public office. It’s not about marriage, it’s not about gays, it’s about a basic understanding that a free society requires a decent respect for a wide range of opinion without penalty by the state. In Menino’s Boston, the Freedom Trail is heavy on the Trail, way too light on the Freedom.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to be all about free speech when that particular speech happens to meet with the approval of the political/ruling class of this country but that's why you need a 1st amendment, right? People tend to forget this country was first settled by folks who held religious views and practices that were at odds with the ruling class of their home countries.


We are 100% down with the exercise of free speech, freedom of assembly, boycotting and speaking out against what people may feel is injustice and range 0-100% down with seeing people make out in public (an alleged stunt to be performed by the protesters) depending on hotness. #Americanvalues. What we are 0% percent down with is thug politicians using their power in threatening to shut down businesses who are exercising those very free speech rights. #chicagovalues The 1st amendment was established precisely to protect that which may offend you and when the government forgets this principle, the guilty parties need to rode out of town on a rail, hopefully sooner than later.

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