Forcing you to bake a gay wedding cake is just the start. The gay marriage fascists are pretty resourceful when it comes to using the power of government to enforce their orthodoxy. And by the way, this is one of the less-discussed problems with the perpetual expansion of government into everything. If you can’t do business without government contracts, or without tax exemptions, you inevitably empower someone in the political realm to judge your worthiness to be in business at all.
When the Denver City Council chooses a concessionaire for the Denver International Airport, the decision is supposed to be based on the applicant’s operational prowess, its quality, its track record and, of course, its ability to make the arrangement profitable for both parties while pleasing airport patrons with products and service.
But it’s not about that for what appears to be a majority of the Denver City Council. It’s about gay marriage, and the now airtight requirement that anyone doing business with the government must not agree with 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. It makes no difference if all you do is sell chicken sandwiches, which has nothing to do with homosexuality. If you’re like Chick-fil-A, and your owners have made it clear they believe the Bible, you’re not running concessions at the DIA:
Chick-fil-A’s reputation as an opponent of same-sex marriage has imperiled the fast-food chain’s potential return to Denver International Airport, with several City Council members this week passionately questioning a proposed concession agreement.
Councilman Paul Lopez called opposition to the chain at DIA “really, truly a moral issue on the city.”
His position comes despite ardent assurances from the concessionaires — who have operated other DIA restaurants — that strict nondiscrimination policies will include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Robin Kniech, the council’s first openly gay member, said she was most worried about a local franchise generating “corporate profits used to fund and fuel discrimination.” She was first to raise Chick-fil-A leaders’ politics during a Tuesday committee hearing.
The normally routine process of approving an airport concession deal has taken a rare political turn. The Business Development Committee on Tuesday stalled the seven-year deal with a new franchisee of the popular chain for two weeks.
This is where we’ve gotten with gay marriage politics in the United States. It used to be that if a politician had it in for a business for some reason that had nothing the legitimate terms of a proposed contract, the politician would at least invent some phony pretext for stalling the deal. Not anymore. Now they come right out and admit that they’re only doing it because the business doens’t agree with them on a social issue. Even the editors of the Denver Post, which backs gay marriage, is warning the City Council to be careful about the precedent it’s setting here:
Think this one through, Denver City Council. If you block Chick-fil-A from returning as a vendor at Denver International Airport, how far might you then go in imposing political litmus tests on corporations seeking to do business there — or elsewhere in the city?
And what are the implications for free speech in America if such political vetoes by cities were to become the norm?
At a committee meeting this week, Councilman Paul Lopez described opposition to the chain at DIAbecause of its CEO’s hostility toward same-sex marriage as “really, truly a moral issue on the city.” Some other council members clearly agreed.
