When supporters of LGBT equality denounced Chick-fil-A for its president’s comments regarding gay marriage, conservatives rushed to support the fast-food chain and defended Dan Cathy’s freedom of speech.
However, people did not criticize Cathy for his words but for his actions. It’s been known that Chick-fil-A donated millions to anti-gay groups that support horrible laws here and abroad.
Despite claims of a violation of Cathy’s freedom of speech or religion, we should note that, ironically, the First Amendment also protects the criticism Cathy received. Furthermore, the First Amendment only protects attacks on speech from the government — not private individuals.
The First Amendment also protects freedom of association. If I don’t like the practices of a particular business, I can choose whether I purchase their products or services.
Like you and I, Cathy and any other Chick-fil-A executives have the right to associate with or donate money to whomever they want. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.
Arranging boycotts against Chick-fil-A or companies with policies we disagree with is what freedom is about. The beauty of a country based on individual liberty and private property is that we can patronize or not patronize and associate or not associate with whomever we wish.
Companies that support terrible policies or engage in anti-gay activities have to suffer the consequences of their actions. They might gain customers who agree with them now, but as the tide turns on the issue of gay marriage as younger generations replace older ones, they should realize their policies won’t be sustainable in the long run.
In his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote “to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
The action (or inaction) of boycotting — choosing not to buy from a company that supports discriminatory groups or policies — represents this Brandeisian concept of counterspeech.
Conservatives who purportedly support the free market destroy the power of their argument when they condemn groups for peacefully boycotting. The free market relies on voluntary associations, which includes the freedom to not associate. Those who boycott companies for practices with which they disagree are simply engaging in a perfectly valid market activity.
In the past, the government passed laws banning discrimination by governments and private businesses. Government discrimination, such as Jim Crow laws in the pre-civil rights era south, should certainly be prohibited to promote equality under the law.
However, laws that force racists, homophobes and anti-Semitics who own private businesses to interact with groups they wouldn’t otherwise choose to be around hinders the power of the freedom to associate. These people are terrible for holding such hateful views and need to be shown the error of their ways.
Yet, because anti-discrimination laws circumvent the power of social pressure and counterspeech to prevent discrimination, sentiments like racism and homophobia are generally pushed underground and away from public scrutiny. This keeps racists and homophobes in business and makes it difficult for those seeking to challenge such views to identify discriminatory companies and boycott them.
As John Stuart Mill contended in “On Liberty,” “The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand.”
Open discrimination means we can fight racism and homophobia out in the open. Freedom means the freedom to discriminate and the freedom to boycott that discrimination.
Justin Hayes is pursuing a master’s degree in political communication. His column appears on Wednesdays. You can contact him via opinions@alligator.org.
