Speaker 1: An anti-abortion, anti LGBT Christian group, pulled the stunt to get themselves refused
service at a restaurant. And now you've got a lot of right wingers saying they were denied
service for their religion. Is that actually what happened? I want to start with this today,
because it is so important to understand when we talk about nondiscrimination differences between
beliefs and identity. And this is the perfect example to talk about that. So let's start with
an article that tells us what happened. It's a CBS News article. Restaurant Denies Christian Group
Service Over Its Anti-abortion and LGBTQ stances. Here's what happened. A restaurant in Richmond,
Virginia, refused to host a private event for a conservative Christian organization over the
group's position on same sex marriage and abortion rights. The restaurant is called Metzger Bar
and Butchery, and it is known as an inclusive establishment that has rarely refused service
to willing patrons, but said it denied service to the group in an effort to protect its staff,
many of whom are members or member women or members of the LGBTQ community. Quote,
We recent recently we refuse service to a group that had booked an event with us after the owners
of Metzger found out it was a group of donors to a political organization that seeks to deprive women
and LGBTQ persons of their basic human rights in Virginia. The move was consistent with Metzger's
past practices, was made out of respect for its staff. Quote We have always refuse service
to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe. And this was the driving force behind our
decision. All of our staff are people with rights who deserve dignity and a safe work environment.
This is a super interesting legal story because discrimination along religious lines, meaning we
don't serve Christians, would be against the law. But political beliefs are not protected outside
of Washington, D.C.. And that is what is at the crux of this. Now, I'm biased. My view here is
that nowhere is there any evidence that these folks were denied service for being Christian.
They were denied service for their views on particular issues, their view on abortion,
their view on LGBT rights. Now, where it starts to get dicey is that as we have seen the religious
right start to behave over the last few years is to argue, well, those views are informed by
our religion. And by telling us that those views are what is getting us banned or refused service.
You are effectively discriminating against our religion because there is no daylight
between our view on abortion and LGBT rights and our Christian faith. Now, the other part
that's important to consider is that this was a stunt. The Family Foundation is the name of the
group that did this. They obviously knew about Metzger's history of supporting inclusivity,
including LGBT inclusivity. They knew that they tried to book an event there. And after they said
no, they started soliciting donations because, oh, we've been canceled. They've canceled us where?
This was a very clear and known stunt and this was the outcome. So there's a couple of different
things that I think are important to talk about. From a legal standpoint, I can't adjudicate here
whether based on all of the facts a court would find saying no was because of Christianity or
saying no was because of political views that are not protected by nondiscrimination law.
The truth is, we all know there are progressive Christian groups, progressive Catholic groups,
etc.. Endless Jewish groups that have very different views about abortion. There's no
rule that says if you are, quote, Christian, you have to have this particular view about
abortion or about LGBT people. So we know that you have other perspectives there. And so.
It's obvious that if this were a progressive Christian group or a Christian group that
had a let others decide view, we don't like it, but let others decide about abortion or
whatever the case may be. They would not have been refused service. And so by definition,
that is not religiously based discrimination. The problem is that thanks to what happened to
the judiciary in the United States under Donald Trump, one of the biggest victories that genuinely
took place during the Trump administration was the ability of Donald Trump and the success for Donald
Trump of moving the judiciary dramatically to the right in the United States. Now, most prominently,
we think about the Supreme Court, and of course, that is prominent. And that's what
most of us know about long public confirmation hearings. We know the names of these folks,
etc.. But at many other levels, the appointment of right wing judges by Donald Trump has led to a
judiciary that is much more likely to find. Yeah, even though really they say it's the views, not
the religion. You can't separate those religious views and this is effectively, religiously
based discrimination. You must host the Family Foundation. There are judges in the United States
that would find that, and that's very, very scary. Now, at the back or the bottom or the top of this,
however you want to describe it. There's always the hypocrisy with these people. They want to
have it both ways. On the one hand, they want to be able to discriminate against the LGBT people,
whether it's the anti-gay baker or whatever story you want to look at. They want that freedom,
but they also want everyone else to have to accept and suck up and allow their bigotry and their
discrimination and their whatever it may be in the particular circumstance, xenophobia or homophobia
or whatever the case may be. And then they frame it as religious when they want to do the
discrimination. It's their right because of their religion. And then when they want to demand that
they be serviced, they say it's discrimination not to serve us. They want it both ways. There is not.
A lot of exciting stuff happening in hospitality from the from the from this particular perspective
right now. But the right to refuse service is a real thing. And as long as you're not violating
nondiscrimination law, which includes religion, etc., then you should be allowed to do it. I
believe that the restaurant was well within its rights to say because of your views they didn't
even mention their religion because of your views. We are not going to offer you service. We will see
what it leads to in terms of lawsuits and if there is an outcome, then we will get to that