Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny
Kudos to Mayor Bloomberg. With all the political uproar over Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy's support for traditional marriage values and spending heavily to thwart gay marriage efforts, Mayor Bloomberg will not prevent the company from doing business in NYC. Unlike the Mayor's of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco who have all went on record as supporting efforts to keep the company from doing business in "their" cities.
Politicker - Despite Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s advocacy for a healthier diet and strong support for gay marriage, he’s cold on the idea of banning Chick-fil-A within the five boroughs.
As mayors around the country — including Boston’s, Chicago’s and San Francisco’s — are backing efforts to keep the fast food chain out of their cities due to the company’s president, Dan Cathy, spending millions to push back against gay marriage, Mr. Bloomberg said it’s “a bad idea and it’s not going to happen” on John Gambling’s radio show this morning.
“They’re all friends but I disagree with them really strongly on this one,” Mr. Bloomberg said of his mayoral colleagues. “You can’t have a test for what the owners’ personal views are before you decide to give a permit to do something in the city. You really don’t want to ask political beliefs or religious beliefs before you issue a permit, that’s just not government’s job.”
Mr. Bloomberg went on to argue that blocking a business based on their political beliefs opens a potential slippery slope where liberal cities block conservative establishments and vice versa with conservative cities.
“Freedom of speech — everybody’s in favor of it as long as it’s what they want to hear,” he explained. “Well the only way that you have your freedom of speech is if you give other people freedom of speech. … This is just a bad idea and it’s not going to happen in New York City.” {Read More}
Meanwhile over in Bean Town, as Boston is affectionately called by it's inhabitants, Mayor Menino, like the good goose stepper he is has decided to take the left's approved "political correct" approach to keeping a legitimate business from operating in "his city" because he disapproves of the views of it's management. Even though there exists no evidence the business operate in a discriminatory manner against the gay community.
However it is no problem, at least for Mayor Menino anyway, to give away land (valued at 1.8 million) at under market value to an organization who had in its leadership ranks a man who is on record as saying homosexuality is a “crime that must be punished” by death?
Details as reported by the The Boston Herald.com
Given his stance on Chick-fil-A, would Mayor Tom Menino grant permits to a group that has counted among its leaders a man who has repeatedly called homosexuality a “crime that must be punished” by death?
Actually, he has done that . . . and more! Menino effectively gave away city land valued at $1.8 million to the organization, and he gave a speech at its ribbon-cutting ceremony.
It’s the Islamic Society of Boston’s mosque, and when it comes to anti-gay sentiment, one of its early supporters makes Chick-fil-A look like the Provincetown Men’s Chorus.
During the (understandable) controversy over the city selling land for a house of worship at a below-market rate a decade ago, reporters discovered that the Islamic Society of Boston counted imam Yusef al-Qaradawi as one of its spiritual guides. As the Weekly Standard reported at the time:
“The ISB does not dispute the fact that they have repeatedly used al-Qaradawi as a tool to raise funds for the Boston mosque, printing a brochure that highlighted al-Qaradawi’s enthusiastic support of the mosque and playing a videotaped message of support from him at a 2002 gathering.”
Also in attendance at the gathering, listening to al-Qaradawi’s message: Mayor Tom Menino.
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OK, Mr. Mayor. But when you gave all that land to the ISB at a song, here’s what imam al-Qaradawi was teaching:
“[A homosexual should be given] the same punishment as any sexual pervert . . . Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom. Some say we should burn them.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, “In 2003 Qaradawi stated on IslamOnline that the punishment of homosexuality is the death penalty.”
In the end, says the anti-Islamist organization MEMRI, al-Qaradawi came down on the side of stoning.
Hey — say what you want about Chick-fil-A, but they aren’t trying to kill anyone. Other than, perhaps, via hardening of the arteries.
Chick-fil-A wants to come to Boston, pay taxes and put people to work. Menino says “no” because the CEO thinks same-sex marriage is wrong. {Read More}
Liberal Mayor Bloomberg made the decision he did because? I suppose it is because it is the only rational one. More importantly however he made his decision because it is the right one, on every level.
Mayor Menino and his counterparts in Chicago and San Francisco are making the wrong decision because? I'd like to believe it's because they don't know any better. But really, I think it's because they owe their political existence to the goosestepping politically correct intolerant left.
That's my take, what's yours?
Via: Memeorandum
Via: Memeorandum
