The Price Of Chick-Fil-A Building In Chicago Is Abandoning Their Free Speech

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Written By:
Rob Port

Sep 19, 2012
11:52am

I disagree with Chick-fil-A’s position on homosexual marriage, but I think that the privately-owned company is entitled to their opinion and should be able to hold it without being bullied by political leaders.  Which is exactly what just happened in Chicago where a city alderman has dropped his opposition to the fast food building a new restaurant there if they agree not to contribute money to groups that oppose gay marriage.

Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, 1st, said the restaurant has agreed to include a statement of respect for all sexual orientations in an internal document and promised that its not-for-profit arm would not contribute money to groups that oppose gay marriage.

Though Moreno said he scored a “big win,” the company made nearly identical pledges in a July 19 Facebook post that went up even before Moreno took issue with Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy’s opposition to gay marriage.

The statement of respect also falls short of Moreno’s goal of adding language opposing discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people to the company’s employee handbook.

“Just to make it clear, Moreno was going to block this restaurant not because of issues with infrastructure or traffic issues or safety or any actual matter of municipal governance,”  writes Reason’s Scott Shackford.  ”He was going to block the construction of this restaurant because he objected to the political positions of the company owners and their constitutionally protected speech in the form of donations.”

That’s just plain pathetic.  In fact, it’s un-American, but this sort of behavior is all too common on the left.  This is why the left hates the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. FEC ruling protecting the free speech of business organizations.  This is why the left rails against independent political spending by private groups that don’t disclose their financial backers.

Because they want to exercise this exact sort of political thuggery, bullying businesses into abandoning their free speech in exchange for permission to do business.