In his letter that ran recently in TimesLedger Newspapers, City Councilman Daniel Dromm urged New York University to kick the Chick-fil-A eatery off its campus. He claims the business has created a “toxic environment” because of its “opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.”
So far, NYU has refused to force the business to close its doors. As Dromm himself notes, the Student Senators Council maintains that taking action against Chick-fil-A would “limit freedom of expression.”
The councilman who has fought valiantly for the rights of the LGBT community does not appear to understand NYU’s commitment to freedom of expression. As long as the business does not discriminate against LGBT customers or employees, the university is right not to close Chick-fil-A.
That’s what free speech is all about. Students and faculty are free not to eat there, but the university is not free to tell the owner what to think.
Safe Haven
In a comment following our story about a mother who allegedly abandoned a baby outside the Woodside Houses, Dawn Geras, vice president of the National Safe Haven Alliance, takes TimesLedger to task for not using the report as an opportunity to discuss the city’s Safe Haven law.
We will do so now.
The baby girl, only a few hours old, was wrapped in a sheet and left in a grassy area. The infant was brought to Elmhurst Hospital and listed in stable condition. Police are looking for a young woman named Cathy Lu, who was not otherwise identified.
In New York, under the Safe Haven Law, a person cannot be prosecuted for abandonment of a child if that person leaves a child not more than five days old with an appropriate person or in an appropriate and safe location, such as a hospital or police precinct.
But the surrendering person should not be planning to come back for the child.
We have reported this on numerous occasions, and so have local news programs, but mothers continue to abandon newborns. Each time one of these babies is rescued, it’s a miracle.
We feel some compassion for mothers so distressed or frightened that they can’t bring their babies to a safe place, but we feel a lot worse for the babies they abandon.
