Nobody has a right to demand that anybody else approve of their sexual practices
Even so, it's hard not to be discouraged at his being forced to resign after 24 hours as a member of the Country Music Association board not because he is somehow biased against people of homosexual orientation- he isn't- but because of how his religion (and that of most churchgoing Americans, whether they see fit to acknowledge it or not) regards homosexual behavior. Huckabee- like both Testaments and, historically, Western culture- sees such behavior as ethically wrong and disagrees with the relatively recent, revisionist notion that marriage is about "love" or affectional attachment rather than existing for the same of begetting and raising children. That the Supreme Court and most Americans disagree with him does not make his position bigotted or justify his being silenced when he expresses it.
Jason Owen, co-president of Monument Records and owner at Sandbox Entertainment, is a truly bigotted gay man who insists that anyone who has different ideas about sexual ethics and the nature of marriage than he does is ipso facto himself or herself a bigot and needs to be discriminated against. This intolerant stance is characteristic of many in the gay community and on the cultural Left, and itself represents every negative and ugly failing it attributes to those with whom they disagree. In any case, Mr. Owen chose to threaten the CMA with a boycott by both of his companies and anyone they represent should the former Arkansas governor remain on the board.
It's essentially a repeat of the Gestapo tactics which ousted Mozilla chairman Brenden Eich from his position because people employed by the company disagreed with his religious and social views. It's hard to see how anything could be either more Orwellian than to use a disagreement over religious and ethical matters which in no way involve ontological disparagement of people of a certain sexual orientation as an excuse for the very kind of intolerance, discrimination,, and bigotry which is falsely attributed to the victims. Nor is it easy to imagine anything less American.
Nobody has a right to discriminate on the basis of ontological characteristics like race or sexual orientation. But neither does anyone have a right to insist that anyone else ethically approve of his or her own behavior, or agree with their philosophical and political understandings regarding the nature of societal institutions. It's not simply that people like Huckabee and Eich are being publicly and falsely defamed for holding attitudes toward gay people which they do not in fact hold. It's just another indication of the illiberal character of modern liberalism, and how Leftist authoritarians can be trusted no more than those of the Right to stand up for the right of those who hold perfectly legitimate and honest opinions with which they themselves happen to disagree to hold and to express them.
Anybody who thinks that the Left and the Democrats provide a viable answer or remedy for Trumpist authoritarianism is sadly mistaken, and unless a third political force arises to espouse the principle ascribed to Voltaire, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," our days as a free people who cherish, uphold, and live by the values of the Founders are numbered.
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