Freedom in America

I make a lot of comments about public policy. I mostly comment on economic issues.

I normally don't like to comment on social issues, but there were a couple of related social issues that surfaced last week that have potentially huge economic implications, so I will comment.

- The Arts & Entertainment Network suspended the star of Duck Dynasty for expressing his religious views that homosexuality is a sin.

- At the same time, East-side Catholic High School (in Sammamish, WA) terminated a Vice Principal for marrying his gay boyfriend.

I have great friends on both sides who are up in arms about these situations.

In 2012, I voted to legalize homosexual marriage in Washington.  The reason I did so was the same reason I voted to make Affirmative Action illegal in Washington State many years ago.  Namely, the government has no business whatsoever in discriminating against anyone.

However, the situations at A&E and East-side Catholic High School have nothing to so with government discrimination.

The issues here are about property rights.

Both the Arts & Entertainment Network and East-side Catholic High School should have every right to employ or not employ anyone they please.

We as individuals might not like the business decisions made by those organizations.  If don't like them, we every right to not do business with them and even organize boycotts against them.

This is called freedom.

People on all sides who want to force their views on others should be viewed with a lot of skepticism.