Mayor Menino is right about one issue in the controversy over Chick-fil-A: There is no place for discrimination on the Freedom Trail (“Menino clarifies Chick-fil-A stance,” Metro, July 27).
Freedom to have an opinion, speak it, live it, whether or not anyone else stands behind you, is your right as an American. You also have the freedom to patronize and support an organization, business, or politician who reflects your opinions, or refuse to if they do not.
The conflict is that our mayor does not seem to feel this applies to his bully pulpit. Of course, Menino acknowledges that, even if he does not agree with the company president’s opinion, the mayor’s office does not have the right to deny permits to Chick-fil-A.
But nor does the mayor have the right to block young entrepreneurs because they have not come to him for his blessing, as he seems to be doing with Greg Selkoe, cofounder of the Future Boston Alliance (“Breaking the Menino rule,” Yvonne Abraham, Metro, July 26).
When this sort of things happens repeatedly, the citizens of Boston are no longer living in FREEDOM.
I disagree with Suffolk University political scientist John C. Berg, who maintains in the July 27 article that the showdown over Chick-fil-A probably will not have much of an effect on Menino’s electoral appeal.
I will not go to Chick-fil-A because the owner’s opposition to gay marriage does not reflect my support for the equal right to marry; however, my vote in Boston’s 2013 mayoral race is going elsewhere for the sake of freedom.