Better in their words…

This is what “tolerance” looks like.
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Sometimes there comes along an idea so wrongheaded that even Michael Bloomberg and the American Civil Liberties Union can’t support it.

So it was this summer, when the Democratic mayors of Boston and Chicago declared Chick-fil-A unwelcome in their cities because the mayors disagree with CEO Dan Cathy’s support for “biblical marriage.” New York Mayor Bloomberg called the threats “inappropriate.” A spokesman for the Illinois ACLU suggested that they were unconstitutional to boot.

Now the controversy is back, after a Chicago alderman announced that Chick-fil-A had agreed to stop supporting “antigay organizations.” After two days of confusion, Mr. Cathy this weekend said Chick-fil-A had “made no such concessions.” No matter who is telling the truth, this much we know: The targeting of Chick-fil-A is but one front in an ugly campaign where the goal isn’t so much to prevail in a political argument as to buffalo opposing voices into silence.

We saw this in California recently, when individuals who had contributed to Proposition 8—a ballot initiative backing traditional marriage—found gay-rights activists pressuring their employers. We saw it in the campaign to get corporations to withdraw from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a pro-market organization of state legislators that found itself branded racist for supporting state voter-ID and stand-your-ground laws. We saw it even earlier, in 2005, when the Schwab financial services firm came under fire for supporting the libertarian Cato Institute and Social Security privatization—not to mention similar efforts to get corporations to withdraw from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In one sense, these examples are all different. In the Proposition 8 case, activists targeted individuals; the Chick-fil-A matter, by contrast, involves a private company threatened by government officials, while the attacks on Schwab and ALEC zero in on the donations of large, publicly traded companies.

In the most critical sense, however, the goal is the same. Whether the means involve Federal Election Commission disclosure requirements, Securities and Exchange Commission rules on shareholder resolutions, or simply tagging those with opposing views as “hate groups,” the object is clear: to limit debate by forcing one side off the playing field.

For a long time, the prevailing idea was that you encourage free speech with regulations ensuring full transparency. While this may sound fine in theory, in practice these requirements can conflict with the right of people to come together in free association. Certainly that was the Supreme Court’s understanding in 1958, when it rejected the state of Alabama’s demand that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People turn over its membership list.

In like manner, Bradley A. Smith says that what he saw as head of the Federal Election Commission under George W. Bush led him to conclude that some of our government requirements limit rather than encourage free speech. “Today we have too many people saying not only ‘I disagree with you,’ but ‘I hate your message and you shouldn’t be allowed to say it,’” notes Mr. Smith, who now runs the Center for Competitive Politics. “The more ruthless then use disclosure laws to seek out and target those who hold contrary views.”

Mr. Smith says that many Americans who favor disclosure do not perceive that these requirements might make them targets. For example, if you were a gay-marriage supporter working in the midst of an evangelical Christian business in a deep-red state, would you want your boss and co-workers to know you gave $100 for a gay-rights referendum? Obversely, if you were a young professor at Harvard up for a tenure vote, how comfortable would you be with your colleagues’ knowing you had contributed to a tea-party initiative?

At the corporate level, the browbeating takes a different form. In general the idea is to manipulate whatever levers are available (e.g., shareholder resolutions) to expose, isolate and demonize some recipient of the company’s giving. Each time a company cries “Uncle!,” you trumpet the news—”Six More Companies Dump ALEC” read a recent headline on a website supporting such tactics—to make the remaining supporters feel isolated and vulnerable.

In other words, the Supreme Court in Citizens United may have upheld the speech rights of corporations in law, but these assaults on corporate giving seek to deny anyone who speaks up for smaller and more limited government the funding and wherewithal necessary to mount a public argument.

In short, under the false flag of better governance, the activists are working hard to impose standards and codes that would make it impossible for American business—and individuals—to support any but the most politically correct causes. For all the lofty words about accountability, did the drafters of our public-disclosure laws really intend them to be used by activist groups to get people fired for holding unfashionable views?

Welcome to the new intolerance. Chick-fil-A is only the beginning.

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