Liberals show hypocrisy on religious liberty laws

If it wasn’t for double standards, some liberals would have none at all.

Liberal governors and mayors signed travel bans to North Carolina and Mississippi, CEOs of major corporations pledged boycotts and relocations, and Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams have canceled scheduled concerts in those states.

At issue are a Mississippi law that narrowly and carefully protects the rights of religious charities, small businesses, and select public servants and a North Carolina law that reasonably protects privacy and safety in public restrooms, while leaving private institutions free to set their own bathroom policies. These laws, apparently, are now unacceptable to some voices on the left.

Liberals decry the influence of big business and big money in politics. They denounce, as a direct threat to democracy, the ability of corporations to engage in issue advocacy. They argue that politicians must answer to the people, not the highest corporate bidder.

Or at least that’s what they used to say. Liberals are now cheering Apple, PayPal, Salesforce and countless other giant corporations threatening legislators and governors with boycotts if they pass popular laws that the left disapproves of.

These corporate elites didn’t win an argument about good public policy. Instead, they threatened to boycott and transfer jobs out of states if the politicians didn’t do as they insisted.

This economic coercion is a form of cronyism — cultural cronyism. Big businesses use their outsized market share to pressure government to do their bidding at the expense of the will of the people and the common good. And, hypocritically, the left cheers it on.

Many of us think that what these corporate giants are doing is bad for representative democracy and self-government. But they have a right to do it. And yet, they want to deny the rights of bakers, florists, photographers, adoption agencies and marriage counselors who only want the same liberty to follow their conscience.

Big business is using its market freedom to deny small businesses and charities their religious freedom. The hypocrisy is astounding.

Take the cases of Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams. They said their consciences require them to deny their artistic gifts to citizens of states that have enacted policy they disagreed with. And, of course, they have that right.

Adams wrote: “I cannot in good conscience perform in a state where certain people are being denied their civil rights.”

He’s wrong about the laws — they don’t deny anyone civil rights. Instead, they protect civil rights. They protect religious freedom, which, as the liberal American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) once acknowledged, is a civil liberty.

Finally, if these boycotts are really a matter of principle — and not just grandstanding — then why do so many of these same companies do business in foreign countries with terrible records on human rights in general, and for LGBT people in particular?

The left knows it can’t win on the merits in the debate about religious freedom and bathroom privacy. These bills enjoy strong public support, that’s why elected representatives are voting to pass them. And it’s why corporate elites have to target governors to veto them.