Whatever feelings of contempt you may have for Mayor Bloomberg are irrelevant. As to having his finger to the wind, the soda ban is quite unpopular here. Only a bit more than a third of the people support it, and even some of those don’t believe it will actually do any good. I personally don’t support it. It is a pretty silly idea, but Bloomberg is by no means a silly man. And whether you like him or not, he has taken the right position on Chick-fil-A, even thought there is a huge gay community in New York City, some of whom might have been pleased to see him demagogue the issue like Rahm Emmauneul or Christine Quinn.

Blake,

I can answer that with a definite no, because there are no campuses involved. There is only one Chick-fil-A in the state of New York, and it’s on the NYU campus. There was a move by students earlier this year (before this current controversy) to have it removed, and NYU decided to keep it. They will look at the issue again when school opens in the fall, and if NYU decides to remove it, it will be gone, and if they decide to keep it, it will stay. I would not want to make any bets either way.

Christine Quinn is not New York.

Is it not true that Chik-fil-A is being kicked off New York college campuses?

Blake,

Christine Quinn is not New York. Mayor Bloomberg strongly disagreed with her:

But Mr. Bloomberg, an outspoken supporter of unfettered capitalism who has also defended unpopular causes like a proposed mosque near ground zero, said he firmly believed in a business’s right to sell fried chicken to the masses, regardless of its owners’ beliefs.

“It’s inappropriate for a city government, or a state government, or the federal government to look at somebody’s political views and decide whether or not they can live in the city, or operate a business in the city, or work for somebody in the city,” the mayor said on his Friday morning radio show.

Mr. Bloomberg said that while he was friendly with the mayors of Boston and Chicago, “I disagree with them really strongly on this one.”

“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,” Mr. Bloomberg said, citing concerns about censorship and freedom of speech. “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’s comments put him on the same side of the debate as many evangelical Christians and the American Civil Liberties Union. “I don’t agree with the A.C.L.U. on a lot of things, but in this case they happen to be right,” the mayor said.

The mayor said that if Chick-fil-A wanted to open a New York City store, “they got to find a space, and clear it with the Buildings Department, the health department, get a grade for their food — you know, ‘A,’ hopefully — and put it up.”

The New York Times criticized Christine Quinn in an editorial:

Speaker Christine Quinn of the New York City Council also overreached when she sent a letter, on Council stationery, calling for the president of New York University to “sever your relationship” with a Chick-fil-A eatery on campus. “Let me be clear,” she wrote, “I do not want establishments in my city that hold such discriminatory views.”

As a gay woman who recently got married, Ms. Quinn’s anger about Mr. Cathy’s comments is understandable. And she stressed on Monday that the letter was “solely my own opinion.” But, as a powerful city leader and a leading candidate for mayor, she and others in city governments should take care not to be seen muscling aside businesses whose owners don’t agree with their views. That won’t work, especially in a city as big, diverse and opinionated as New York.

Pleased don’t engage in stereotypes or sweeping generalizations. New York City is one of the most economically, religiously, ethnically, racially, and politically diverse cities in the world.

Except, apparently, they’re not diverse enough to tolerate the presence of evangelical Christianity.

I think liberals have figured out – belatedly – that they run the risk of losing their biggest weapon.

It is essential to their political cause that they keep the framing as persecuted gays vs. malicious, bigoted gay-haters. The minute it starts being framed as an equal “zero sum” equation, the gay rights activists lose, because they don’t want “equality”, they want dominance.

They are reaching the point where they have to be careful not to overplay their hand (if they haven’t already). In the uncommitted middle, sympathy for gays could easily turn to sympathy for Christians, if it becomes visible that the Christians aren’t the ones doing the bullying.

Nearest family member living in Chik-fil-A territory tells me “meant to go today but drive-through line was insanely long – all day long”.

Clearly if only implicitly, those who disagree with Quinn are not part of “we” and “us”, i.e. they are not true New Yorkers. Quinn et al. are not far from channeling the spirit of anti-German ideologues during WWI or of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, defining marriage traditionalists as the ‘enemy within’. The case of Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas is ominous in this regard. SSM proponents have already extracted the required condemnation of Regnerus from the journal which published his work in the first place, and the University continues its own “audit”. When is the show trial scheduled?

It sure seems that Rod Dreher is right: “Christians [and other traditionalists], these cities don’t want you”.

As practised by private individuals or groups, it is difficult to see how anyone, in a free society can object to them

Whether public officials can retain the impartiality demanded of them in their official capacity, whilst lending their support to them in their individual capacity is very questionable.