HomoQuotable - Dr. Steve Salbu

"True individual freedom includes allowing consenting adults to marry the partners they choose, regardless of gender. To those for whom same-sex marriage is personally objectionable, their free choice is simple: Don’t enter into one. But don’t impede the freedom of others to do so. As long as Chick-fil-A operates within the boundaries of the law, municipalities and institutions should leave the decision about whether to eat at Chick-fil-A to individual consumers. If they do, Chick-fil-A is still likely to experience a net loss of business over time as a result of Mr. Cathy’s statements.

"This is because gay people are the constituency most viscerally, fundamentally and personally affected by the denial of the freedom to marry the consenting adult we choose. We are the ones with the highest personal stakes in sticking out the battle in the long run. And we will vote with our feet. In the marketplace as in politics, those rare players who place individual freedom ahead of their own personal agendas will get my vote every time." - Georgia Tech's Dr. Steve Salbu, in an op-ed published for the New York Times.

NOTE: Virtually all of the city officials who declared that they'd fight Chick-Fil-A opening in their towns have walked back their statements, saying either that they'd spoken in haste or that they were only expressing their personal opinions and had no actual plans to block business permits. Last week the ACLU was quick to react and issued strongly worded warnings about any such actions. While it was emotionally satisfying to hear such vigorous support from gay-friendly politicians (and I certainly fed into that by covering them), their words poured gasoline on the fire and allowed our enemies to frame the entire national debate as being about freedom of speech, which we know it is NOT. With clearer heads provided by a few days' distance and strictly in terms of messaging from gay-friendly officials, we must reluctantly concede that we lost this round and we lost it very badly.