Chicago and Boston have it all wrong...

The mayor of Boston and the aldermen who run Chicago have decided that because Dan Cathy, President and CEO of Chik-Fil-A has said that he is opposed to gay marriage, they are going to put roadblocks up to prevent the company from opening new locations within their city limits.

Time for a civics lesson for these elected leaders.  You can't do that.  Chik-Fil-A is not discriminating against gays in employment (there was one lawsuit I am aware of, but Mr. Cathy was not talking about hiring).  Chik-Fil-A is not saying "gays are not welcome in our restaurants.  He's given his personal belief on an issue and now he's being punished for his freedom of expression.

When it comes to individuals wanting to punish Mr. Cathy and his company, that's just fine.  People are free to boycott Chik-Fil-A, to demonstrate outside their locations, to try to convince others to not patronize those locations and so on.  But when it comes to governments, at the city, county, state or federal level, they need to back off.  There's this little thing called the First Amendment.  Let's look at it's text again, as a refresher:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The 14th Amendment requires that states and lower levels of government abide by the Bill of Rights and not abrogate those rights granted to the people.  In denying the Chik-Fil-A company required permits, licenses and so on, solely because of speech made by a company official, these elected officials are denying Mr. Cathy his First Amendment rights.

Hey, I'm all in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage.  It should be the law of the land.  The Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and needs to be overturned by the Supreme Court.  But only the people have the right to economically punish a business for exercising its right to speak freely.  Not the government.