David Harsanyi has an important article up at National Review — here is the subtitle:
Denver and Chicago persecute businesses based on their owners’ beliefs.
And a couple of excerpts:
Stop bellyaching about Washington. All the country’s best fascists are on your local city council.
Not long ago, Colorado became a leader in the fight against religious freedom when its Civil Rights Commission, self-appointed ministers of justice and theology, decided that a shopkeeper who refuses to participate in a gay wedding ceremony must be smeared and fined out of business. A Colorado appeals court says this is kosher, finding that the brittle sensitivities of a cakeless couple outweigh the constitutional rights of Christian business owners.
Now, in an effort to save everyone some time, the cultural imperialists at the Denver city council have decided to skip the pretense of some trumped-up injustice and jumped right to discriminating against a business solely because of the beliefs of its CEO.
…
Now, when the Founding Fathers told us that government can make no law respecting an establishment of religion, I took it to mean that the belief system of a union-installed sock puppet on a city council would be completely irrelevant in matters of expression and faith. Really, truly.
Now, people are free to boycott and protest whomever they please. Citizens and elected officials have every right to work to cut off taxpayer funding to businesses and institutions they find morally distasteful. But if the city council of Anytown, USA, were to concoct reasons to deny permits to gay business owners who support same-sex marriage, many Americans would rightfully find that appalling. If you’re OK with the idea of a city council’s denying Christians who believe in traditional marriage the same freedom, you’re a massive hypocrite — and probably worse.
Read more: National Review
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