Well, here we go. Leftist big city mayors make jackasses of themselves promising fascist punishment on a private, job-sustaining company because they disapprove of the views of the company’s owner. America responds by supporting free speech and delivering that company its highest ever single-day earnings. The bomb threats and “kiss-in” haven’t hurt the company. So here come the frivolous but expensive lawsuits.
The Civil Rights Agenda, a local LGBT rights advocacy group, filed multiple complaints with the Illinois Department of Human Rights Thursday, alleging that the Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A restaurant chain’s “intolerant corporate culture” violates Illinois law and a provision in the state’s Human Rights Act.
“In our current high speed media and social media environment, Chick-fil-A has announced and caused to be published, to hundreds of millions of people, that LGBT people are unacceptable and objectionable,” said Jacob Meister, Governing Board President of TCRA and the attorney who filed the complaint. “They have made it clear the lives of LGBT individuals are unacceptable to them and that same-gender families are unwelcome at Chick-fil-A.”
None of that is true, but it doesn’t matter. The Civil Rights Agenda is using the courts to do what Adam Smith did to that Chick-Fil-A worker in Tucson: Be a noisy pest. But the lawsuits will also make for an expensive pest, and may end up destroying jobs if not destroying Chick-Fil-A itself.
Hurt feelings are the basis of the lawsuit.
“The complainants are a same-gender family with a daughter,” said Martinez. “Chick-fil-A used to be one of their favorite places to eat until Mr. Cathy’s latest statements were reported so widely. Now, they feel completely unwelcome in the establishment.”
If hurt feelings can become the basis for destroying a thriving company, then no one is safe from the least emotionally stable in our society. Amazon supports many political causes to which I personally object. Does that give me the right to take them to court and punish them?
Mark my words here: This lawsuit, if it succeeds, is only the beginning. Canada has advanced a few years farther down the anti-free speech road on this than we have, and in that country pastors of churches have faced legal action for adhering to the Biblical view of marriage that, until a couple of months ago, was President Obama’s position. If the left can succeed against Chick-Fil-A by killing the company in court, churches will be next. We have already lost the freedom of conscience via the ObamaCare abortifacient mandate, which kicked in August 1 and forces religious charities and hospitals to subsidize medical procedures that violate their religious beliefs. The First Amendment is no longer sufficient protection, not after ObamaCare and not when the left opens up the Pandora’s box of suing over hurt feelings.
Those who support such lawsuits do not care about justice or equality, and do not agree with Voltaire’s principle of disapproving of what one says while pledging to defend to the death their right to say it. Those who support such lawsuits do not care who they hurt. They got their feelings hurt, and they want revenge.
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