The Family Foundation, a Christian and conservative nonprofit organization based in Richmond, Virginia, was supposed to have a group dinner with some donors at the Metzger Bar and Butchery in Richmond on Wednesday. To their shock, the group’s leaders were told 90 minutes before their reservation that it had been canceled — and what’s more, that they were not welcome in the establishment, period.
Metzger posted on social media that it had discriminated against these diners because …
“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. We have always refused service to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe and this was the driving force behind our decision. Many of our staff are women and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community. All of our staff are people with rights who deserve dignity and a safe work environment.”CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE GROUP DENIED SERVICE AT VIRGINIA RESTAURANT AS STAFF FELT ‘UNSAFE’
The restaurant staff’s alleged safety concern is obviously just a facade — no one alleges that the group in question ever behaved in a threatening manner. In fact, the group was not even given a chance to show up, so how could it have? This is a clear-cut case of religious discrimination. As it takes solace in the fact that its staff members feel “safe,” the management of Metzger probably ought to start lawyering up and perhaps prepare a bankruptcy filing. It’s usually not a good idea to post online about how and why you just violated federal civil rights law.
If the restaurant had a bit more self-reflection, it would be asking how its own flagrant discrimination against this group is different from the 303 Creative v. Elenis case, whose oral arguments the Supreme Court just heard last week. That case pertains to a web designer who refused to create websites endorsing same-sex marriages. In fact, there are a few important differences between these two cases about a denial of service to a customer, but none of the differences weigh in Metzger’s favor.
Metzger unilaterally canceled a reservation at the last minute and refused to serve a group of diners in a restaurant (a type of institution explicitly defined as a “public accommodation” in federal law) because the management did not like the group’s religious beliefs. Although the diners had not even shown up, they falsely claimed to have felt “unsafe” because someone disagreed with them over the morality of homosexuality or abortion. Note, however, that these diners were not trying to make restaurant staff endorse or celebrate their religious or political beliefs. Rather, they were denied something as simple as a place to sit down and eat a meal.
Metzger’s bigotry is, of course, one-sided. Ask the restaurant’s owners whether they think it would be appropriate, using the same rationale they gave online, to refuse to serve an observant Muslim family, and their response will surely be one of protest. Likewise, imagine the reaction if Metzger’s owners were Christians who denied service to an LGBT organization.
What’s remarkable is that the Left has no problem with this targeted discrimination. Consider, for example, the 303 Creative case, in which petitioner Lorie Smith, a web designer, serves gay clients and presumably clients whose beliefs she does not share on all manner of issues. The one thing she does refuse to do is create websites that celebrate or editorialize in favor of same-sex marriages. Like a large minority of people in America, she sincerely believes same-sex marriage to be a deformation of a holy sacrament. She claims, further, that the government of Colorado has no more of a right to force her to create such a website than it does to force a newspaper opinion columnist to write something he doesn’t believe in or to force a musician to perform in a state whose politics he disagrees with. The Left, however, believes it has the right to force Smith to provide this service against her conscience — a service that, according to Metzger’s logic, could be rightly denied to her.
These two cases have some vague similarities, but it is the differences that matter more. Metzger’s mean-spirited viewpoint discrimination (right down to the petty, last-minute cancellation) contrasts sharply with Smith’s right not to endorse one of the more controversial institutions introduced since the turn of the century. It seems pretty clear which business is in the right — and which one is in Richmond.
