Opinion

Chris Quinn, silly person

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn over the weekend demonstrated that one need not actually be a silly mayor in order to act like one.

Quinn joined hands with Mayors Thomas Menino of Boston, Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and Edwin Lee of San Francisco — each having promised to cast the Chick-fil-A fast-food chain into the darkness.

Or, at least, outside city limits.

This, after company Chairman Dan Cathy was quoted as saying that he supports “the biblical definition of the family unit” — which, he said, implies opposition to same-sex marriage.

Now, there’s no hint that Chick-fil-A has broken any discrimination laws. The views expressed are Cathy’s alone.

But the mayors all declared that the company’s values conflicted with those of their respective cities and that therefore it was not welcome to do business there.

Quinn concurs, and Saturday called upon NYU, the landlord of Chick-fil-A’s only franchise in New York City, to evict it.

That’s not something NYU can take lightly. It has serious business before the council — its massive expansion plan — and the “request” could reasonably be seen as extortionate.

The speaker, anyway, is entitled to speak on whatever pops into her head.

Then again, so is Cathy.

It’s called the First Amendment, and one would think that someone who aspires to New York’s mayoralty would get that.

Certainly the incumbent does.

“You can’t have a test for what the owner’s personal views are before you decide to give a permit to do something in the city,” Mayor Bloomberg said Friday, during his weekly radio appearance.

“You really don’t want to ask [about] political beliefs or religious beliefs. That’s not government’s job.”

So, for the time being, it would seem that Chick-fil-A is good to go in the five boroughs (so long as it lays off the trans-fats, doesn’t over-salt the waffle fries and serves its sodas in 15 oz. cups, of course).

But what to make of Quinn?

Once upon a time, she seemed to be the only non-runt in the wannabe-mayor litter. But Quinn has truly been on a pander tear of late — aimed principally at ingratiating herself with unions but defining her credibility way down in the process.

The fact that she needs remedial instruction on something so basic as the First Amendment at this stage of the game suggests that there was little more than vapor there in the first place.