This recent legal invention will continue to turn American principles of presumed innocence and due process on their head.

In the topsy-turvy world of the Justice Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, we were told that a person should be considered guilty until proven innocent, and that we must always believe accusers even when their allegations are unverifiable, remote, and arise under suspect circumstances. For conservatives, the hearings were a reminder of why the presumption of innocence is a bedrock American principle, and why the Founders guaranteed that citizens would not be punished unless they had been convicted of a crime under a fair and impartial process.

But long after the Kavanaugh hearings have faded from the spotlight, another recent legal invention known as civil forfeiture will continue to turn American principles of presumed innocence and due process on their head. Unlike criminal forfeiture, in which the state seizes property of someone convicted of a crime, civil forfeiture is based on the tortured legal fiction that property can be “guilty” of being connected to a crime and that civil proceedings can therefore be brought against the property itself instead of its owner. Cars, cash, guns, and even houses are routinely seized. Rather than being innocent until proven guilty, property owners often have a heavy burden to prove that their property was not connected to criminal activity and can be punished by having the property forfeited — even if they have not even been charged with, much less convicted of a crime. The proceedings usually have minimal judicial oversight and no real due-process protections.

To make matters worse, law-enforcement agencies get to keep the property they seize, which creates a perverse incentive for agencies to abuse the process. Not surprisingly, abuses have been systemic and well documented. For example, the sheriff’s department in Desoto County, Miss., agreed to return a 2006 Chevy Trailblazer owned by the mother of a criminal defendant, but only if the department was paid $1,650. It is common for parents to have their property seized for the alleged criminal activity of their children, even if the parents are completely unaware of the alleged crime. In many cases, the parents enter into an agreement to let the agencies keep all or some of their property. Further complicating this pattern is the fact that often the seized property is worth less than it would cost in legal fees to contest the forfeiture. All of this leads critics to view many forfeiture proceedings as little more than a shakedown. This system also allows law-enforcement agencies to fund themselves, circumventing the legislative appropriations process.

At a bare minimum, agencies should have to publicly report the property they seize, and how they spend the proceeds, to prevent abuse and allow the public to ensure that forfeiture laws are being properly applied. However, even this modicum of reform is often met with opposition from law-enforcement agencies that have become an interest group in the debate over forfeiture laws.

Despite the protests of law-enforcement agencies, initial reforms have already shown the need for transparency and further protections. Mississippi recently passed a law requiring the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics (MBN) to maintain a website listing all property that is seized by it and other law-enforcement agencies. The website was launched on July 2, 2018, and immediately revealed a widespread problem. MBN and many other agencies were routinely pursuing forfeiture of property under a system known as administrative forfeiture, which allowed the agencies to forfeit the property without filing a petition in court. In many instances, the only thing the agency was required to do was provide a description of the property on a website for 30 days. The problem was that the law allowing for administrative forfeiture had been repealed on July 1, 2018, the day before MBN launched the website.

The Mississippi Justice Institute, a constitutional-litigation center, sent a letter to MBN informing the agency that it was violating the law. Nine days later, the agency, to its credit, sent letters to multiple property owners informing them that MBN was returning this seized property, totaling over $100,000 in cash along with other items.

While it is reassuring that the agency followed the law once informed of the change, there is every reason to believe that the improper forfeitures would have continued indefinitely absent the transparency that allowed an outside group to notice them. Even more disturbing is that, when alerted to the change in the law, MBN still had time to file petitions in court to pursue forfeiture of the property under regular civil forfeiture laws. That the agency chose not to may indicate that it knew the forfeitures would never hold up in court.

Law-enforcement agencies are entrusted with enormous responsibility. Every effort should be made to ensure there is not even an appearance of self-interest when those agencies enforce the law. Civil forfeiture clearly jeopardizes that independence, as well as basic American principles of fairness and justice. While further reform is needed, forfeiture transparency is a basic minimum that should be established in every state.

This column appeared in National Review on October 17, 2018. 

A government boycott of a company for an exercise of free speech would be a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.

Chick-fil-A has been heavily criticized for its reputation as a supporter of traditional marriage.  The company’s CEO has made public comments in support of traditional marriage, and the company has donated money to organizations that opposed same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court ruled on the issue.

While it is Chick-Fil-A’s constitutional right to engage in free speech, liberal government officials around the country could not stand it.  When Chick-Fil-A attempted to re-open a franchise at the Denver International Airport, the city council saw its opportunity for retribution.

Councilman Paul Lopez called his opposition to allowing the chain at the airport “really, truly a moral issue on the city.”  “We can do better than this brand in Denver at our airport, in my estimation,” another member Jolon Clark said.

The problem was that Chick-Fil-A’s speech was protected by the First Amendment, which meant the government could not punish the company in retaliation for its speech.  The Denver officials had made it abundantly clear that their opposition to allowing Chick-Fil-A into the airport was due to their personal objection to Chick-Fil-A’s speech.  Because of this, the city was ultimately forced to allow the chain into the airport.

You don’t have to be a constitutional scholar to understand that this exclusion would have been a violation of the First Amendment.  It doesn’t even pass the smell test.  If something like this happened in Mississippi, many citizens would be outraged. Rightfully so.

But this is happening in Mississippi right now, just not to Chick-Fil-A.  Instead, Nike has drawn the ire of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (MDPS) for its new ad campaign featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is widely known for sparking a protest movement in professional sports where players kneel during the national anthem.

The MDPS commissioner recently announced to the Associated Press that MDPS will no longer purchase training equipment from Nike.

Like the Denver officials, the MDPS commissioner made clear that his decision to initiate a government boycott was based on his personal objection to the speech made by Nike, saying: “As commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, I will not support vendors who do not support law enforcement and our military.”

The commissioner’s views are understandable and well-intentioned.  He is a Navy veteran and a long serving law enforcement officer.  He appears to feel strongly about this issue.

As a proud American myself, and as a fellow military veteran who lost a leg in Iraq, I would not personally choose the national anthem as a venue for protest as Kaepernick has, or to highlight this act as Nike has.  However, I fought to protect their right to do just that without fear of government retribution, and I am always heartened to see citizens actually exercising that right.

Moreover, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, of which the Mississippi Justice Institute is a division, has clearly communicated, on several occasions, its opposition to using the national anthem as a venue to protest at sporting events.

But this issue is not about the commissioner’s views or my views on Nike’s speech, or the identity politics which would elevate our views above those of others based on our status as veterans.  It is about the Constitution that we have both sworn to protect.

A government boycott of Nike is simply unconstitutional.

Here is the tricky thing about the Constitution: it works both ways.  If you stand by and watch its protections erode while your adversaries’ rights are under assault, you can’t be shocked when its protections are not there for you when the tables are turned.  If you don’t want a government boycott of Tim Tebow’s kneeling, you can’t defend a government boycott of Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling.

A government boycott in retaliation for corporate speech also ignores Mississippi law establishing bidding requirements for most public purchases.  We have those laws for a reason.

Lastly, conducting a government boycott is simply not the proper role of government.  A public official boycotting vendors with certain views implies that taxpayer money is their money, to reward or punish whom they see fit based on their own personal beliefs.  Many Mississippians may agree strongly with the vendor’s message, and other Mississippians may oppose it.  The government should not use public funds to attempt to speak for all taxpaying Mississippians on matters of public discourse.

If a public official wants to personally boycott a company in response to its speech, they are free to do that and the First Amendment protects that right for them.  But when acting in their official capacity using taxpayer money, neither the Constitution, nor Mississippi law, nor a healthy respect for the opinions of their fellow Mississippians allow for such personal indulgences.

The Mississippi Justice Institute has requested the commissioner to rescind his government boycott.  We trust he will uphold our Constitution.

This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on September 28, 2018. 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in hot water after saying that America “was never that great.” Cuomo is furiously trying to walk back this remark because all reasonable Americans understand that our country, while still struggling to live up to its ideals, has always been the greatest country known to the world. Politicians who do not understand this basic truth should plan to keep their day jobs.

But what made America so great?

When the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, America was a fledgling experiment in self-government, which the rest of the world expected to fail miserably. All of the wealth and power was in the Old World, with its palaces, empires and powdered wig-wearing aristocrats. America was considered the boondocks, full of log cabins and fur cap-wearing farmers, trappers and frontiersmen.

A few years later, America had fielded a Continental Army that defeated the largest military power in world history and had become the freest and most prosperous country in the world.

A limited government and an empowered citizenry

America became great because the Constitution limited the power of government and empowered individuals to lead their lives as they saw fit. The framers of the Constitution did not know what America would look like 230 years in the future, but they knew they were tired of being subject to the whims of a king. They carefully constructed a government that had just enough power to impose civil order, protect citizens from foreign invaders and secure individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but not enough power to violate those rights itself. To achieve this, the framers confined the powers of the federal government to those specifically listed in the Constitution and divided that power among three branches of government.

The framers also took a belt-and-suspenders approach to protecting the rights of the people. They added a Bill of Rights to the Constitution to ensure that certain important rights were never violated, even though the framers themselves said that the Constitution had not granted the federal government the power to violate those rights to begin with. Additional amendments were later added to the Constitution to extend its protection of rights to all people, regardless of race or gender, and to keep state and local governments from violating the people’s rights.

If you don’t recognize this strictly limited government, you would be forgiven. Today, politicians say they can do just about anything they want, except what is explicitly forbidden by the Bill of Rights, and even that is up for debate. When asked where the Constitution authorized a proposed law, one congressman admitted, “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest.”

Every detail of our lives is subjected to government rules

The rest of Congress appears to feel the same way. The Federal Register, which contains all proposed and final regulations issued by federal agencies, has published over 3.2 million pages. If it were printed and stacked, it would be taller than the Washington Monument. This does not take into account all the laws passed by Congress or by state and local governments.

Because of all these rules, the cost of doing business in America is staggering, and startups and small businesses are at a competitive disadvantage to big businesses that can easily afford it. Those large companies can also afford to pay lobbyists to convince lawmakers to pass even more laws that keep new competitors at bay. All the while, countless Americans are prevented from pursuing their version of the American dream.

Where did we go wrong?

The framers envisioned the judiciary as the guardians of individual rights. But over time, the courts have become more interested in picking and choosing which rights to protect or neglect. In the process, they have invented government powers that do not exist. The result is that our government is far more powerful than the founders ever intended.

You may have heard the term “activist judges.” We certainly don’t need those, but we do need an engaged judiciary that takes seriously its role in the system of checks and balances so carefully designed by the framers.

The good news is that we can all play a part in restoring the American vision. Courts will only take our constitutional rights seriously if we do. We need citizens who are willing to stand up for their rights and attorneys who are willing to advocate for those people, simply because it is the right thing to do. At the Mississippi Justice Institute, we have made that our mission.

Several years ago, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made headlines when he attempted to ban soft drinks over 16 ounces. After several years of legal challenges, New York City exhausted their appeals and people in the city were free to drink from a 17 ounce cup. 

Despite that setback, the nanny state is alive and well, particularly in large metropolitan cities and coastal states. But take heart, these rules and regulations are for your own good. At least that is what we often hear.  

Lawmakers are particularly concerned that you don’t know how to parent, especially when it comes to educating your child. While many states, Mississippi included, have parent-friendly homeschool laws, others make it a little more difficult to educate your own child in your own house.  

In Pennsylvania, you must meet educational qualifications to homeschool, file a notarized affidavit, which includes evidence of immunization and an outline of proposed objectives by subject area, meet the required number of days or hours of instruction, including the required subjects, maintain a portfolio, which includes work samples and standardized testing, and then have your child evaluated each year with a certification that must be submitted to the local school superintendent.  

Before children reach school age, we have seen parents seek out new options for preschool, including cooperatives. Here, parents volunteer in the classroom and help run the school, helping to lower the costs of a traditional preschool. Now that this is working well for families, Virginia is looking to require 30 hours of training for parents before they help with activities such as sweeping the floors and passing out snacks.  

After all, are those snacks healthy?

The government is here to help you decide

The city of Baltimore recently banned restaurants from including soft drinks or other sugary drinks on kids’ menus. Now, milk, 100 percent fruit juices, water, and flavored or sparkling water without added sweeteners are what the city of Baltimore will allow you to purchase. Not to be outdone, California is now interested in protecting your children from your bad parenting. A proposed law will require restaurants to serve only water or flavored milk to children, sorry fruit juices.  

But don’t ask for a straw with your milk or water when you are in California. Numerous municipalities have enacted bans, but Santa Barbara is taking the war on straws to the next level. In the coastal city, outlaws who use straws can be fined up to $1,000 and sent to prison for six months. To be fair, cutting down on waste in a good thing. But let’s not pat ourselves on the back for making up some statistics you received from a nine-year old and then passing laws that will do absolutely nothing for the environment.  

Just make sure that milk isn’t raw. Nineteen states, including Mississippi, ban the sale of raw milk, though Mississippi does allow the sale of raw goat milk. But California takes it a step further. They actually deploy “food confiscation teams” to raid the homes of people who purchased bootleg milk. And don’t think about calling nondairy milk, milk.

Regulating competition in the name of consumer protection

The Food and Drug Administration is considering regulatory action that will prohibit almond milk and soy milk from calling their products milk. All because you and I are unaware that Almond milk does not come from a cow. This move is being cheered by the dairy industry, which is looking to use political favor to stifle competition. Sound familiar?

This is what we have seen from the taxi industry in response to Uber and Lyft or the hotel industry in response to Airbnb. Incumbents seek protection from government when a disruptor enters their industry, rather than making changes in products or services in the free-market. They do this because the allocation of resources towards government has worked in far too many places – thus encouraging unnecessary and often silly rules and regulations. 

What is next?

And while we can’t have straws or sugary drinks, at least we still have balloons. For now. The anti-balloon movement appears ready to build on the anti-straw movement and do away with the common practice of releasing balloons. Even though, as the AP admitted, balloons are a “very small part of environmental pollution.” 

Thirty-two years ago President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.” Over the years and decades, we have seen our government continue to grow, giving government regulators more power every day. And as we do that, we continue to lose just a little bit more of our freedoms and liberties.  

Be very cautious next time you hear a politician sell you on a promise that what he or she is doing is for your own good. 

The Mississippi Ethics Commission has found that the mayor and the alderman in the city of Natchez violated Mississippi's Open Meetings Act when they entered into executive session to discuss proposals for garbage collection and recycling services.

The Mississippi Justice Institute, along with The Natchez Democrat and private citizens, filed complaints with the Ethics Commission. The ruling calls on the city and the mayor to comply with the Open Meetings Act. One of the core functions of MJI is to hold our government responsible to its citizens. Transparency is a requirement of governing by principle.

MJI's arguments have been affirmed, once again, by the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

Read the final order here.

The summer of 2018 may go down as the year the nanny state tried to kill the lemonade stand.

For generations, a summer tradition for boys and girls has been to make lemonade, set up a stand in front of their house or near a busy road, and earn money for that special toy they have been wanting, or maybe just to save for a future purchase. For a moment in time, children turn into entrepreneurs, even though they probably couldn’t tell you what the word means.

But lemonade stand entrepreneurs have met a force that strikes fear in the hearts of even the most seasoned professionals: the government regulator.

By now you have probably heard the stories, but they bear repeating because of the sheer lunacy of feeling the need to shut down a lemonade stand, and because they highlight the overcriminalization of our society thanks to laws we have adopted to fix every supposed issue or problem.

In California, the family a five-year-old girl received a letter from their city’s Finance Department saying that she needed a business license for her lemonade stand after a neighbor complained to the city. The girl received the letter four months after the sale, after she had already purchased a new bike with her lemonade stand money. The young girl wanted the bike to ride around her new neighborhood as her family had just moved.

In Colorado, three young boys, ages two to six, had their lemonade stand shut down by Denver police for operating without a proper permit. The boys were selling lemonade in hopes of raising money for Compassion International, an international child-advocacy ministry. But local vendors at a nearby festival didn’t like the competition and called the police to complain. When word of this interaction made news, the local Chick-Fil-A stepped up as you would expect from Chick-Fil-A. They allowed the boys to sell lemonade inside their restaurant, plus they donated 10 percent of their own lemonade profits that day to Compassion International.

In New York, the state Health Department shut down a lemonade stand run by a seven-year-old after vendors from a nearby county fair complained. Once again, they were threatened by a little boy undercutting their profits. A state senator in New York has since filed legislation to legalize lemonade stands. That is correct, we need new laws to clarify that a seven-year-old can run a lemonade stand with the government’s blessing.

For those who may read this and believe the world has gone crazy, we do have a story in Missouri that ended on a good note - though there is plenty of crazy in this story. An eight-year-old boy was being heckled by neighbors inquiring about his permit. If those potential customers got sick, they wanted to know “who we should go to.” The neighbors then proceeded to yell at the boy’s mom after the boy went inside. Fortunately for the boy, the local police department heard about the incident and came by the boy’s lemonade stand to show their support, and to provide their stamp of approval.

As parents and as a society, we should be encouraging entrepreneurship. We should celebrate young boys and girls who want to make money, whether it’s for a new bike or to give to a ministry. When children have the right heart and the right ideas and are willing to take actions, we shouldn’t discourage it. The lessons are valuable. They learn that money comes from work, that you have to plan, and then produce a stand, signs, and lemonade. Introducing kids to the concepts of marketing, costs, customer service, and the profit motive is a good thing.

And why it has always been celebrated in our society for a long time.

Until, at least in a few places, 2018. But I suppose these interactions also provide these young children with another valuable but unfortunate lesson: beware of government and crony capitalism. Vendors who don’t like competition use the law to eliminate competition. And government, however good the intentions may have been, created the laws that actually   work against the development of entrepreneurial values by regulating lemonade stands.

As often happens when government steps in to solve a problem, there are unintended consequences few are willing to acknowledge.

Hopefully, the absurdity of these stories has raised more than a few eyebrows. Perhaps they will cause people to recognize the downside of our regulatory burden and maybe even cause legislators to review more than a few of the laws, rules, and licensing regimes that are stifling growth, innovation, and capitalism. If we want a thriving and growing economy, we’ve got to have more entrepreneurs – including those future ones who sell lemonade in their neighborhoods today.

This column appeared in the Northside Sun on August 9, 2018. 

Supporters have begun the process of gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana in Mississippi. Here are five common sense reasons why liberty-minded conservatives (and everyone else) should support medical marijuana:

• We don’t want government telling us what to put in our mouths any more than we want them to tell us what can come out of our mouths.
• Licensed medical doctors, already heavily regulated by the state, should be allowed to recommend solutions to deal with debilitating medical conditions, no matter the derivative of such solutions.
• Medical marijuana is not the same as recreational marijuana and to try to conflate the two is an insult to the citizens of Mississippi and comes at the expense of patients who should be free to choose a legal option to opiate-based painkillers, with the guidance of their doctor.
• Polling demonstrates that citizens are ahead of politicians and legislators across the county on this issue, with anywhere from as low as 65% to as high as 94% of Americans supporting the legalization of medical marijuana. And it spans all ages and party affiliations.
• This not a “crackpot” or “fringe” issue. The American Medical Association, The Institute of Medicine, and the American College of Physicians have all acknowledged the potential benefits of medical marijuana and the New England Journal of Medicine reported 76% of surveyed physicians would recommend it to a patient.

This year’s U.S. Supreme Court term is drawing to a close this week, and one thing is plain: this is the best Supreme Court—thanks to Justice Gorsuch and the general trend of the judiciary in the Trump Administration—that our country has had in my lifetime.

For proof, look no further than two cases handed down this week, NIFLA v. Becerra and Trump v. Hawaii.

The first case, NIFLA, was about whether California could require pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to post information about where patients could receive abortions. Forcing the centers to put up that information is forcing them to speak and therefore violating their First Amendment rights. California wanted to require people making pro-life statements to post abortion messages in up to 13 different languages. Even if you just wanted to put up a billboard saying “Choose Life,” you would also have to put up a poster with abortion-related messaging.

The Court found California had overstepped its authority.

Policies like California’s show how extreme the pro-choice movement has become. Thankfully, we have a Court that will protect our right to not be forced to say something we disagree with. You could see the same penchant for respecting speech in the Mansky case earlier this term, where the Court said Minnesota could not ban ideological statements, like “Don’t Tread on Me,” on clothes worn to the polling place.

In the second case, Trump v. Hawaii, the State of Hawaii challenged the Trump Administration's travel ban, which blocks some people from eight countries from coming into the U.S. The reason these eight countries were chosen is they refused to share information with our government to ensure that their travelers are not a threat. The countries are North Korea, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Chad, Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela.

Despite handwringing from the Left, the Court found that this policy was squarely within the powers of the President. The President has the power to ensure our country is safe, and even if some want to try to spin this policy as bigoted, the truth is that it mirrored policies from past administrations, like the Carter Administration, and was obviously constitutional.

The most encouraging takeaway from this term of the Court is that the Court clearly does not seem to mind making the hard decisions that would be unpopular in the media. Ruling for someone who opposes same-sex marriage, as the Court did in the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling, is an example doing the right thing even though a swath of big corporations and media coverage will be against you. Defending the Trump Administration’s right to have a reasonable immigration policy is another example. This Court cares about following the law and staying within its designated powers, regardless of what names they get called (or what restaurants they get kicked out of). That’s good for our country and good for the judiciary.

Which brings us to the definition of a “good” Supreme Court. A good court is one that does not bend to what is politically popular or even what the justices think the best policy outcome should be. A good court understands its role, follows the plain text of the law, and doesn’t bend the words of the constitution to fit some desired result.  Trump v. Hawaii provided an example of this approach. The Court knows that the law and constitution provide the President with broad authority in the areas of national security and immigration. It’s not for them to question decisions like the travel ban.

NIFLA and Trump v. Hawaii were close votes—both 5 to 4—so if we want more rulings like this, we need more backup for the five justices who stood for the rule of law. But while we wait for more appointment opportunities for this White House, let’s hope for more Supreme Court terms like this one in the meantime.

The latest development from Washington, D.C. includes a northern Virginia restaurant named the Red Hen and White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

Shortly after Sanders arrived at the restaurant last week, co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson told her that they would not serve her and her party because they disagreed with her politics. Specifically, the owner was unhappy with the Trump administration’s refusal to have taxpayers pay for elective surgery and hormones for transgendered soldiers.

So Sanders and company left and only made note of it in a Tweet:

Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) June 23, 2018

The owner would then go on to defend her actions saying, “People have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”

After the incident we then learned that the owner followed Sanders and her party to another restaurant to continue harassing her.

The difference between Red Hen and Masterpiece

The refusal by a business owner to serve a member of the Trump cabinet, and the celebration of this decision from the left, is oh-so ironic considering the reaction to a Supreme Court decision just a few weeks ago concerning a cake baker and who he would or wouldn’t make wedding cakes for.

The state of Colorado said Jack Phillips would have to make wedding cakes for anyone, regardless of his religious beliefs. Or face punishment for refusing. But in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Phillips in determining that “religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views.”

But there are two main differences between Masterpiece Cakeshop and The Red Hen.

Masterpiece served customers who were gay. Phillips would make a cake for any reason other than for their wedding. The equivalent would be if Sanders asked the restaurant to cook for a Trump campaign event. The restaurant should have the right to refuse to do that, because they disagree with the President’s political message. But the restaurant won’t serve Sanders simply because of who she is and her job. That’s the exact opposite of what Masterpiece did. Red Hen said we won’t serve Sanders under any circumstance. Phillips just said he wouldn’t serve someone under a certain condition.

And the Masterpiece decision also centered around the deeply held religious views of Phillips. The Supreme Court has time and again protected the religious freedoms of Americans, which are guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In the case of Red Hen, the refusal of service wasn’t related to anyone’s religious beliefs; rather purely to political differences.

The market always works

And Red Hen has plenty of encouragement, even from elected members of Congress. For example, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) recently said this: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

But the truth is when it comes to Red Hen or Masterpiece, the market will sort itself out. Kicking someone out of a restaurant, particularly for no reason other than political differences, may be reprehensible. But for someone just outside of Washington D.C. surrounded by a sea of anti-Trump vitriol, it might not be a terrible business decision.

The same is true in the case of Jack Phillips. If his refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding bothers you that much, and you don’t understand how someone could have religious beliefs that run counter to the endorsement of gay marriage, then don’t frequent his business. My guess is there are plenty of other options in Colorado.

Just like there are other options for restaurants in northern Virginia.

As Mississippi was passing legislation to protect individuals like Phillips from discrimination for their religious beliefs, restaurants and businesses in the Fondren and Belhaven areas of Jackson began putting up stickers on their front door or window that said something to the extent of “if you’re buying, we’re selling.”

Which, of course, any business is allowed to do, whether a state passes religious freedom laws or not. In fact, if a restaurant refused to serve someone simply because they were gay, odds are the media firestorm that that would create would cause real harm to the business.

Businesses should never be forced to promote a message that stands in opposition to their beliefs. Masterpiece shouldn’t be forced to make a cake for a gay wedding if they disagree with same-sex marriage, and Red Hen shouldn’t be forced to make a party tray for a pro-Trump rally if they disagree with Trump.