Arrington post is perfect example of 'no religion in the public square' censorship advocacy

Michael Arrington used his position as editor of TechCrunch today to suggest that "we’ll look back on measures like Prop 8 as little different than attempts to stop Women’s Suffrage or the Civil Rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s. Denying a fundamental right to a person - such as marriage - is hateful and backwards."

And more than publish his thoughts and advocate for this secular position, he used his tech pulpit to offer this suggestion, "Google doesn’t have any obligation to run ads like these, and I believe they would be correct in banning it." And in the comments on this post, he added this resolute statement, "I believe this issue has two sides in the same way that the slavery issue has two sides - right and wrong. There’s no right to free speech on Google, and this is hateful stuff."

There probably isn't a Right to free speech on Google articulated in our Constitution. But calls such as this for a complete restriction on political advertising that represents a mainstream religious view is dangerous. And make no mistake - there are tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of Christian Americans who view the institution of marriage as one grounded in religious doctrine, and who accept the various Scriptures describing marriage in glowing terms, and homosexuality as a despicable situation. Mr Arrington would push any debate or advocacy on the merits of protecting marriage in the US off the public sphere served by Google - a rather vast sphere given the number of sites that syndicate Google ads.

This is troubling because many of the largest consumer-facing technology companies have in recent years, and particularly this year, started taking sides in 'moral' political issues, and these companies seem to inevitably choose to support issues that run counter to Christian principles. That these technology companies would throw their weight (and sculpt their internal HR policies) behind secular causes is reason enough to be concerned, but if these companies were to enact 'secular' filters on their business practices, the open forum of the web would tilt in a distinctly secular direction.

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