Bloomberg: You Can’t Have A Political Or Religious Litmus Test For Businesses
As Democrat mayors in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco voice support for banning Chick-fil-A restaurants in their communities over the company’s views on gay marriage, Mayor Bloomberg in New York says the government applying a political or religious standard is wrong.
Given Bloomberg’s usual support for invasive government policies in the realm of health policy, this is actually a little surprising:
As mayors around the country — including Boston’s, Chicago’s and San Francisco’s — are backing efforts to keep the fast food chain out of their cities due to the company’s president, Dan Cathy, spending millions to push back against gay marriage, Mr. Bloomberg said it’s “a bad idea and it’s not going to happen” on John Gambling’s radio show this morning.
“They’re all friends but I disagree with them really strongly on this one,” Mr. Bloomberg said of his mayoral colleagues. “You can’t have a test for what the owners’ personal views are before you decide to give a permit to do something in the city. You really don’t want to ask political beliefs or religious beliefs before you issue a permit, that’s just not government’s job.”
Mr. Bloomberg went on to argue that blocking a business based on their political beliefs opens a potential slippery slope where liberal cities block conservative establishments and vice versa with conservative cities.
“Freedom of speech — everybody’s in favor of it as long as it’s what they want to hear,” he explained. “Well the only way that you have your freedom of speech is if you give other people freedom of speech. … This is just a bad idea and it’s not going to happen in New York City.”
Well said, Mayor Bloomberg.
Tags: chick fil-a, gay marriage, michael bloomberg, rham emanuel
