Gene Policinski: Cities should keep hands off Chick-fil-A

  You and I are free to agree or disagree openly with the president of the Chick-fil-A fast-food chain over his public statements against gay marriage. The First Amendment protects his and our right to express our views.

  But when government officials take sides, they walk a much finer line between protected expression of personal views and the implication — if not open threat — of government punishment for free speech.

  Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press last week, in response to a question, that the company was “guilty as charged” for backing “the biblical definition of a family.” In a later radio interview, he went further: “I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’”