After Chick-Fil-A's-CEO announced opposition to gay marriage on religious grounds, the left reacted angrily. Private citizens don't have to honor the First Amendment, but public officials must. Two of the nation's worst knee-jerk authoritarian left-wing mayors, Emmanuel of Chicago and Menino of Boston threatened to ban Chick-Fil-A from their cities. Both are also strong supporters of gun control laws that would probably not pass Second Amendment muster. Even the left-leaning Dallas Morning News called them out on their disrespect for First Amendment rights. Left-wing political correctness is the supreme law of the land for many on the left. However, the Constitution is the the real supreme law of the land. As you may recall, Emmanuel was Obama's Chief of Staff. I hope Obama doesn't share his former staff-member;s attitudes. However, Obama's infamous "Bittergate" remarks suggest that Obama is also not a supporter of freedom of religion.
President Obama wants a "common sense" approach. Who gets to define it?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/obama-gun-control_n_1704246.html
The PC backlash is incredible. Chick-Fil-A's owner expressed a personal view on marraige based on his religious beliefs. His business has (to my knowledge) not discriminated against anyone based on the owner's opinion, yet the city leaders mentioned want to prevent his company from doing business in their cities. Isn't that, in itself, discrimination? How can a person's opinion be grounds for limiting his economic interests by a government entity. Sure, let the people boycott and affect his bottom dollar, but for the government to do it based on an opinion he holds is just wrong.
ReplyDelete44 & Ham: Thanks for the comments. Re Obama's call for laws to keep guns away from the mentally ill. Easier said than done given that (1) the mentally ill have due process, privacy and other rights (2) predicting dangerousness among the mentally ill is always iffy. Personally, I'm not buying Obama's assertion of support for the Second Amendment (witness his appointment of Sotomayor to the S.Ct. where she voted against incorporating the Second Amend.to apply to the states,
ReplyDelete"bittergate" and other events)
Ham: Agreed! Left-wing PC is an extremely powerful force in this country. It dominates most of the media and academia. The First Amendment does not limit the action of private citizens and consumers, but certainly applies to the government. Either these public officials are ignorant of the Constitution or think their ideology is the supreme law of the land.