Patrick Hobin and John Bachman
Newsmax
29 Jul 2012
Mayors who have told the owners of Chick-fil-A that the restaurant chain is not welcome in their cities are displaying “terrible intolerance,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.
No city is free to discriminate against a company based on the views of its owners, the renowned criminal appeals attorney said.
“If you don’t like their principles, go to McDonald’s,” said Dershowitz.
“I have no idea what McDonald’s principles are. I generally don’t select my chicken or my hamburgers based on the personal ideology of the person who is either flipping the hamburgers or making the money back at corporate headquarters.
“But if people want to do that, they’re free to do it. What a city is not free to do is to discriminate against a company based on the views, religious or secular, of its owners.
The Chick-fil-A controversy erupted when company president Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that the chain, which puts faith ahead of profits by closing on Sundays, was “guilty as charged” for backing the “biblical definition of a family,” and opposing gay marriage.
Dershowitz called Chick-fil-A’s corporate mission, which invokes the glory of God, is “nothing surprising, nothing which should upset anybody.”…
…“…the state has no role to play in picking and choosing one ideology over the other.”…
…Dershowitz said he “despises” the views expressed by Cathy but defends his right to express them “as long as he doesn’t act on them in a way that discriminates against protected classes.”…
Read the complete article at Newsmax.com where there is video of the interview.
Update: The Strange Case of l’affaire du Poulet Filet
…For a sitting politician, using the power of local government to block establishment of a business because of the personal beliefs of the CEO or owner, or their pattern of charitable giving is a violation of Constitutional principles any way you slice it, and the chief offenders in that respect are already walking back from public statements to that effect. The degree of fury over this is curious, though. How the heck did the love that could not speak it’s name become the love that won’t shut up about it? Are there really that many gays out there relative to the general population, wanting to take that hike down the aisle and collect kitchen appliances and silverware from their nearest and dearest and settle down to suburban conformity? Or is it just that the adherents carrying on so loudly ad infinitum about same-sex marriage (who may not necessarily actually be gay and wanting to get married) have latched onto it as the trendy cause du jour with which to epater the bourgeoisie, and to prove that they themselves are really hip and tolerant people…
Also, Evolution Complete: Dems To Adopt Same-Sex Marriage Platform, Report Says
Chick-fil-A Just Latest Example of How Progressives Threaten Freedom of Religion
