Most of you know that Chick-fil-a is under serious fire for donating to National Organization for Marriage among other anti-gay marriage organizations. This has upset a lot of customers, leading to mass boycotting of the company, and led such companies such as The Jim Henson Company to publicly withdraw their support, as well as donate profits from a recent agreement with Chick-Fil-A to the Gay & Lebian Alliance Against Defamation.

I don't object to any of that, in fact I think it is awesome that people are expressing themselves in this way. However, recently I have also found that Politicians are taking it upon themselves to Ban Chick Fil A from their cities, claiming things such as the company is not open enough for their community. I take great objection to that. It is at a company's discretion how they spend their earnings, there is no reason for politics to get involved with this. It is unconstitutional and infringing on freedom of speech, among other laws directly intended for business owners. I think this blocking takes it too far, and that it is a slippery slope that will lead to either
a) less donations to any charity from any company in the future (why risk losing a market like Chicago?)
b) sneakier donations to worse charities from shady companies (leading to corruption)
c) a great decrease in business owners' rights.

I fail to see what there is to discuss.

Chick-Fil-A cannot be discriminated against based on its religious affiliation, and it is wrong of any agent of the state to get involved in such matters.

I think people and organizations should be held accountable for what they say and do. You may have freedom of speech, but you shouldn't have freedom from consequences. If you feel the need to take a public stand against something, then you should be prepared to take the public reaction against you.

Honestly, as soon as you start using business profits for anything other than the maintenance and expansion of that business, you should be put in the public spotlight and held accountable for what you're spending it on. If people in an area don't want a new store opening there, especially when it's due to questionable business practices by the store and controversial public comments by the store's president, then it shouldn't be allowed to open there, and I would hope the political party responsible would see it stopped. That is what politicians are supposed to be after all, representatives who carry out the will of the people they represent, and this is one of the few times where I think they are actually doing what they are supposed to.

Also, this shouldn't be compared with businesses making charitable donations. These donations were not charitable in nature, they weren't going to help anyone anywhere in any way. This isn't a slippery slope. If you use the money from your commercial business specifically to try to stop human beings from having the same rights as one another, then you should be ready to have your business possibly suffer for it.

I don't see this as a company being discriminated against based on its religious stance, but rather, a company being reacted to after shoving its anti-human rights agenda down the throats of anyone within arm's reach. They should have stuck to selling chicken, rather than their intolerant ideology.