Below is my opinion on recent incidents involving customers being forced out of businesses due to their political views or associations. There is a crushing irony for some who supported efforts to force businesses to prepare products from cakes to websites despite religious and political objections. In these cases, the owners were refusing to offer the same services (not expressive products) that they offer other customers.
Here is the column:
“This is my place of business.”
Those words from Jim Sheehan, owner of the Wydaho Roasters coffee shop in Driggs, Idaho, have sparked the latest controversy over the right of businesses to refuse service on the basis of religious or political views.
Sheehan has drawn national attention after throwing out a group of pro-life teenagers, calling them the equivalent of a Ku Klux Klan meeting in his shop. Sheehan clearly caters to those who want their lattes with an added shot of rage.
However, this and a number of other cases have exposed the hypocrisy of many regarding the service businesses must provide customers with opposing views. From cakes to coffee, shops remain ground zero for an age of rage.
Years ago, politicians and pundits rallied around the effort to force Jack Phillips, a cakeshop owner, to create cakes celebrating same-sex marriages. Phillips objected that it violated his religious beliefs. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in what many of us hoped would be a final resolution of this conflict.
I had long criticized the framing of the case (and other similar cases) under the religious clauses rather than treating it as a simple matter of free speech. In the end, the Supreme Court punted in a frustrating 2018 decision.
In 2023, however, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for free speech in 303 Creative v. Elenis. It ruled that Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer, could refuse to provide services for a same-sex marriage. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that “the framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think.’ … They did so because they saw the freedom of speech ‘both as an end and as a means.’”
But notably, in cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop, Phillips insisted that he would always sell cakes to any couple, including same-sex couples. He only refused to make cakes specifically celebrating same-sex marriages, due to his religious views.
The case of Wydaho is different. Sheehan refused the same general accommodation offered to all customers because he opposes pro-life causes. In the confrontation, Sheehan declared that “in my world” pro-lifers are no different from the Ku Klux Klan.
“This is my place of business,” he declared. “I did a lot of work to get people on the ballot so women would have the right to choose in the state of Idaho, and this is something I do not support, nor does my wife, and it’s our business. So we have that choice.”
In my view, they do have that choice. Yet it must also be acknowledged what Sheehan is doing is far more extreme than what Phillips did in Masterpiece Cakeshop. He is not being asked to create a coffee concoction opposing abortion, like a Cafe Au Life specialty drink. He acknowledges that other groups might use the shop — he just does not want these teenagers to use it to support pro-life causes.
The same controversy arose the same week across the country in Virginia. In Alexandria, Fatana Karimi, owner of the Karimi Salon, threw out a woman after she revealed that she was Israeli. Jessica Walton posted an account of the encounter, and a video was later posted on social media.
In the video, the person identified as Karimi says that she declared on Instagram that she would not serve those who support Israel. (She also adds that she got Walton to sign a release for the video.)
The Virginia Human Rights Act states that businesses cannot engage in “unlawful discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, ethnic or national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or military status.” Karimi will likely argue she refused service not due to Walton’s religion or national origin, but due to her support for Israel — a political position.
The case is reminiscent of the abusive treatment afforded to Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz at Martha’s Vineyard by a pierogi stand. He was also refused service over his political views.
The line between national origin and religious discrimination versus political discrimination can be tenuous and unclear. However, in the video, the owner states that it is her national identity that is causing the action: “Get out of my shop. I can’t provide service to an Israeli. It’s against my political beliefs. You need to leave immediately.”
Back in Idaho, Sheehan’s bizarre analogy to the KKK outraged many, to the point that he later apologized for it. However, it is fascinating that liberals are now celebrating the right to exclude others for political or religious reasons, even when they are not asked to engage in any expressive act or make any creative product that contravenes their beliefs.
If that is now the case, many owe individuals such as Phillips an apology for years of costly lawsuits, even after the Supreme Court gave him his first nominal victory.
Sheehan could be prosecuted if he were refusing general service or accommodations to the teenagers due to their race or religion. But he is refusing service on the basis of his own political views. Wydaho Roasters does not appear to want business from people who are pro-life, of whom there might be quite a few in Idaho. Karimi appears not to want either Israeli or possibly Jewish customers. It is a curious business plan to exclude such a large segment of the market, but some owners are sure to put their political views before their profits.
However, those on the left cannot have it both ways. They cannot reject the free speech rights of some owners to decline service while celebrating others’ refusal to do the same thing. None of this is likely to make society any more civil. No one wants a black eye to go with the red-eye espresso.
Of course, recognizing the free speech rights of an unhinged coffee shop owner does not require patronizing his establishment. Sheehan clearly does not want to serve pro-life citizens, and I expect the feeling is mutual.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Karimi can hang a shingle out that says this is an Islamic salon. We kill jews whenever possible. The state can’t interfere in a religion nor the practice of religion. Jewish eyebrows aren’t on the menu.
The baker can do the same as a Christian bakery. We follow Christian laws and virtues. Gay cakes aren’t on the menu. Why not try an Islamic bakery for a wedding cake. No empathy fir jack because he didn’t file suit for targeting his business and wasting his life.
The civil rights act cannot rebuke, contradict, religion nor 1A. If there’s a civil suit because of eyebrows or cakes or coffee have at.
The civil rights act was about black skin. Is there a religion that prohibits black skin?
Communists always want to go to the Supreme Court. then they get disappointed when the Court rules against them. We live in a Republic and the Supreme Court has ZERO AUTHORITY in State matters.
Ahh, but the First amendment!!!!!
Read the constitution to understand how the first Amendment means nothing.
Anything NOT WRITTEN in the constitution is unconstitutional and the FEDERAL government, for whom the Constitution is written, may not do it.
Do you read anything about Speech, or Religion or Firearms? No you do not! Therefore the FEDERAL government has no authority.
All constitutions are written as if the organization has all the power EXCEPT those defined. The unique US FEDERAL Constitution wss written with zero power EXCEPT what was explicitly written. SHOCKER, many did not believe the gubmint.
The Bill of Rights is superfluous and only reiterates what we already know. There is nothing in the document regarding religion, to the bill of rights simply reiterates the FEDERAL government may not establish a State religion.
ALL ELSE IS LEFT TO THE STATES
As egregious to humanity as Colorado is, as long as their State Constitution allows them to force a business to do what they desire, the only viable option is to close and leave the State.
It is regretful that our most esteemed legal scholars are incapable of reading the US constitution and realizing it only has to do the the FEDERAl gubmint.
Show me how the Feds have anything to do with the stupid laws of Colorado.
A plea to liberals: please stop killing children. Life is beautiful. They deserve to live.
Federal Court Struck Down Idaho’s Total Abortion Ban
A federal court ruling out of Idaho has potential implications for exceptions in abortion bans nationwide and could eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court to decide.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled earlier this month that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides a narrow right for a pregnant patient to obtain an abortion if the pregnancy could be a risk to their health, including their mental health. It’s the first ruling since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health in 2022 to find that the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion access in certain situations.
Two years ago, U.S. Supreme Court justices were asked to consider whether Idaho could set aside federal law mandating stabilizing care in an emergency if that stabilizing care, in a doctor’s opinion, was to terminate a pregnancy. Now the question could be whether any pregnancy scenario where a patient’s physical or mental health is threatened is something that all states can regulate under Dobbs.
https://stateline.org/2026/08/21/abortion-could-return-to-supreme-court-this-time-with-a-focus-on-womens-health/
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Turley doesn’t mention it, but Idaho had an absolute and total abortion ban where the state was perfectly willing to let women die!
From April, 2024
Women Airlifted From Idaho To Oregon And Washington
Since January, Dr. Stacy Seyb, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Boise, Idaho, has had at least four of his patients wheeled onto emergency flights and airlifted out of the state while experiencing severe pregnancy complications.
One of them was a woman whose water broke around 20 weeks into her pregnancy, putting her at risk of infection. In these types of emergencies, ending the patient’s pregnancy can be part of the standard of care. But doctors at the hospital where Seyb works say they have been forced to transfer patients who have these complications out of state to comply with the state’s abortion ban.
Since Jan. 5, when the Supreme Court lifted an injunction that had shielded doctors providing emergency care, six pregnant patients at St. Luke’s have had to be airlifted out of Idaho, according to Dr. Jim Souza, the chief physician executive for St. Luke’s. Last year, the system saw only one such transfer, he said.
One of the most common complications is when a patient’s water breaks in the first two trimesters of pregnancy, according to Souza. Last year, the hospital system had 54 such cases, most occurring before fetal viability.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/idahos-abortion-emergency-supreme-court-airlifted-rcna148828
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Late term pregnancy complications are far more common than the anti-abortion forces will ever admit.
I had a friend whose water broke prematurely. No, it doesn’t require killing the baby. Ever. This is just goofy propaganda
This is utter garbage. In none of these cases was there any necessity to kill the baby. This bloodthirsty doctor WANTED to kill the baby, so he had the mother airlifted to another state so he could fulfill his criminal wishes.
In cases where the mother’s LIFE is in danger, Idaho permits abortion. But those cases are rare. In none of these cases was the mother’s life in any danger; and there is no right to kill another person just to preserve your “health”.
Complications are a part of life. I moved a pile of slate shingles yesterday, slipped fell and bruised myself.
That is life. Things do not always go perfectly.
Tomorrow you could get hit by a bus.
I do not know the Idaho law – and I highly doubt you actually do either.
But if you do not like it – work to change it.
Or leave for somewhere else.
I want to make something really clear.
The people who lied to us about Russian collusion – when they were doing the colluding.
The people who lied about the hunter biden laptop.
The people who lied about Covid.
The people who lied about Biden’s competence.
The people who lied about …
Do not have any credibility.
You post a bunch of claims – with near certainty – SOME parts of those claims are true.
With near certainty other parts are not true.
Then you link to media – all of which has exactly the same problem.
Then you cite people – supposed experts, as if their opinions are gospel.
You treat alleged experts like cristian fundimentalists treat the text of the bible – and like them you do so only when they say what you agree with.
You do not have any credibility.
If EVERYTHING you claim is true – go work to change the law.
Don’t lie to people and you likely will succeed.
But I doubt you will succeed – because I doubt you are capable of telling the truth.
The controversy has always & only ever been about what medical professionals call ELECTIVE abortion. The word LITERALLY means NOT medically necessary
Not quite. It’s also about abortion that the medical industry calls “medically necessary”, but only to preserve the mother’s health, not her life. This includes “mental health”. The thing is there is literally NO pregnancy that you can’t find a doctor who will certify that it must be ended to preserve the mother’s health. None. Any woman who wants to get rid of her baby can find a doctor who will sign such a certificate. That’s why the “health” exception cannot be allowed, and it must be fought by all means necessary, including deadly force.
ATS – no, it is about who decides and what the criteria are.
Those of you on the left have politicized everything in existance.
No one trusts you or any of the doctors you educated to decide what is “medically necessary”
“Idaho had an *absolute and total abortion ban* where the state was perfectly willing to let women die!” (emphasis added)
Please try to get the facts right.
Idaho law very specifically makes exceptions when the woman’s life is at risk and in the cases of rape or incest.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill is a corrupt and dishonest judge and should be impeached; if Congress won’t do that, then he should be strung up on a lamppost. He knows very well that this is not the law, that nothing in the 14th amendment requires such an exception, and he abused the power given him to impose his radical opinion on the state.
The “health exception” is an exception that swallows the rule, and makes all restriction of abortion impossible. There are thousands of doctors who are willing to certify that any woman who wants an abortion, for any reason, “needs” it for her “health”. And this so-called judge knows this very well. It’s an outright license for full resumption of the baby-slaughtering industry.
There is a right to kill another person if it’s the only way to save your life. It’s called self-defense. There is NO RIGHT to kill another person to preserve your health, and certainly not your mental health. Why should it be any different just because the other person hasn’t been born yet?
I doubt that is the question. More likely the question is whether the left can manufacture threats to the life of the mother.
Regardless there is no 14th amendment right to medical care
and there is no constitutional right to mental health.
You can tell a right from something that is not because rights are things that do not require others to act.
Unless you can give yourself an abortion – it is not a right.
Regardless, Dobbs disposed of this.
While I have no idea if Idaho is as restrictive as the plantiffs on the left claim – The left is always manufacturing exaggerated claims.
And mostly this case looks like an excuse to manufacture a gigantic faux mental health bypass for abortion laws,
But even if left wing claims are correct – which I highly doubt – when have those on the left ever told the truth about anything.
You constantly lose at the supreme court because you constantly try to game the court.
That does not play well.
Regardless if you do not like Idaho’s abortion laws – Change them, or leave Idaho.
This is the same advice that conservatives in NYC or CA should take regarding the egregious laws there – except that many of those actually ARE unconstitutional.
Abortion is not a right, It is also not healthcare – which is also not a right.
As a libertarian I would prefer that the state stayed mostly out of the issue. Which does not mean that I think abortion is moral.
NOT MY BODY MY CHOICE – HOMICIDE
And here are some bonus scientific facts that prove it’s not just an organ or part of the mother.
During its early stages of development, the placenta of the unborn child secretes neurokinin B-containing phosphocoline molecules, which protects the child from detection by its mother’s immune system, because it can be interpreted as a foreign body and is subject to attack. This is because the fetus is of non-identical genetic material to the mother due to their different DNA.
Also present in the unborn child are lymphocytic suppressor cells which stop interleukin 2 (IL2) cells from signalling cytotoxic T cells to kill the child. The purpose of IL2 cells is to distinguish between self and non-self (parts of the mother and foreign parts). The lymphocytic cells would not need to inhibit the response of the cytotoxic T cells if the IL2 did not signal the fetus as a foreign body. This would not occur if it was one of her own organs because the response would not be initiated.
An organ does not have its own organs. The fetal heartbeat begins at around 22 days after fertilisation as I said earlier, and brain waves are detected at about six weeks, which means the unborn child has a heart and a brain. At seven weeks, all other organs are present, although not fully developed, which would mean not only did the mother have an organ with different DNA to her, but this organ also has its own organ systems, and so the mother has an extra heart, brain, stomach, liver, etc.
– Emma Greenland-Broadsmith
Estovir is saying that we’re supposed to let women die giving birth amid pregnancy complications. Or we’re supposed to force women to carry doomed pregnancies. And somehow his post here warrants those measures.
Yet public opinion polls show that less than 20% want total abortion bans.
Claiming everyone is Estovir is just PSYCHO!! MORON ANON
Says Estovir as ‘Kirk’.
Lame as always MORON ANON. What a BOZO ANON!!
f off dustoff
Exceptions to save the life of the mother, or for rape or incest, are acknowledged by virtually all pro-lifers. You have nothing but lies and straw men. You also refuses to face the fact that all other abortions – the vast, vast majority – kill a human life but lack those extreme circumstances. Moron, liar, idiot, twit.
Many or most pro-lifers, including me, do NOT support exceptions for rape or incest. No one would support a law that would allow an adult, or even a one-year-old, to be killed just because her father was a rapist, let alone because BOTH parents committed incest. So why is it OK just because the baby is still in the womb? The ONLY exception that is supported by all pro-lifers is to kill the baby when it threatens the mother’s life, just as one may shoot a grown person who is threatening someone’s life.
“Many or most pro-lifers, including me, do NOT support exceptions for rape or incest.”
I am for the maximum reduction of abortions. I don’t care what I might believe. To effectuate results, one must be more pragmatic and not build walls of opposition against the end goal.
1. You’re lying. The anonymous poster before you wrote absolutely nothing that would imply banning abortion when the alternative is the mother’s death. Literally NO ONE in US politics supports that! Everyone agrees that a person is entitled to defend her own life by killing a person who is threatening it. That’s self-defense.
2. I don’t give a **** what the public wants. 80% of the German public wanted to kill all the Jews; that didn’t give them the right to do it.
I do not know Idaho law – several others have asserted that Idaho has an exception for real threats to the life of the mother.
The people saying that have a far better track record than you.
They say that you are lying and Idaho does not have a total abortion ban.
Again you have a $hitty track record for telling the truth.
And given that it is near certain you are lying about Idaho’s law – why should you be beleived regarding anything else ?
I fell yesterday and bruised myself. In time the bruise will heal. I do not have a RIGHT to force the bruise to disappear just because I want it to.
The only thing FORCING women is nature.
Neither the federal government nor the state of Idaho have power over that.
Tomorrow you could be struck by lightning. You do not have a right not to be struck by lightning.
Denying you something you have no actual right to, is not FORCE.
Those of you on the left should have to deal with ACTUAL force sometime – so that you can learn the difference between not getting your own way and actual FORCE.
What matters is not WHO is saying something but whether it is true.
Because you are posting as anonymous, and because the anonymous left wing nut posters here have an abysmal track record with the truth – I would trust almost anyone else more than you
‘Pro-Lifers’ At January 6th
The anti-abortion and white nationalist camps seemed to merge during the January 6 insurrection. Longtime anti-abortion extremist John Brockhoeft livestreamed himself outside the U.S. Capitol during the riot, claiming he was “fighting for our beloved President Donald J. Trump.” In 1988, Brockhoeft was arrested outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida, after authorities, who had been tipped off by his wife, found explosives in his car. He later admitted to committing a series of arsons and bombings of abortion clinics in Ohio. Brockhoeft served seven years in prison.
Also at the Capitol on January 6 was Jason Storms, now the national director of Operation Save America — the current name for Operation Rescue, once the nation’s largest and most volatile anti-abortion protest organization. He was joined by other members of the group, which reported on its website that Storms and others had “set up the Lord’s beachhead at this immense gathering.”
https://theintercept.com/2022/07/11/abortion-trump-right-wing-patriot-front
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Turley ridicules Mr Sheehan for comparing the so-called ‘pro-lifers’ to the KKK. Yet here we learn that the anti-abortion forces are intertwined with the White Nationalist militias who brought us January 6th. How odd the professor allies himself with such violent factions.
What a complete crock of stinking shit! That’s all you got, moron. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, and more lies. Pathetic.
There were no “white nationalist militias” who “brought” us the protest at the Capitol on Jan-6-2021.
Yet here we learn that the anti-abortion forces are intertwined with the White Nationalist militias who brought us January 6th.
Not only is that perhaps the weakest argument I’ve seen on this blog on any topic (not to mention being based on a false premise) . . .
But I’m sure babies who are about to be aborted, if they learned that, would say, “Oh, okay then. In that case, go ahead and crush my skull, tear my limbs off, and suck me into a vacuum cleaner, I don’t mind.” /sarc
There was no insurection.
I do not care who was at J6th.
Almost no one trusts anything you post – because like you are lying by calling J6 and insurection – you constantly lie about all kinds of things.
The catholic church is opposed to abortion – even to save the life of the mother.
Only a small percent of catholics in the world are white.
Catholics also oppose the death penalty.
They are not white nationalists,
They are not even vaguely associated with the KKK.
You have clearly LEARNED nothing.
There were several early insurections in US history – in those insurrections citizens took up arms against the government.
while many were arrested, few were actually charged and fewer still convicted and pretty much all fo them were pardoned.
Regardless an insurrection is when people take up arms against the country.
It is not when they assemble to petition govenrment to refuse to certify a lawless and corrupt election.
It is not when people assemble to petition government for ANY REASON AT ALL – regardless of whether the rest of us agree with that reason.
Those of you on the left are free to assemble, protest, petition government for any and all of the stupid reasons of your choice.
Others here have correctly pointed out that communism is unconstitutional – which it absolutely is.
Yet, you are perfectly free to be a communist in the US, to run for office as a communist, to vote for communists, to get elected as a communist
but if you actually try to impliment communism – the courts will shut you down.
But you will not be arrested, or prosecuted.
Those of you on the left wreaked havoc accross the country, you looted, stole committed arson, protested “mostly peacefully” over the self inflicted drug overdoes death of a pathetic petty criminal who ruined his own life.
No one charged you with “insurrection” – yet you openly advocated for destroying law enforcement, and you were violent.
While you did not for the most part bring guns, you did bring weapons – something no one at J6th did.
Once again you confuse spin with truth.
If you want to be beleived – quit lying.
“We’re here for the community.” “We’re welcoming to everyone.”
“But if you believe in protecting innocent unborn life – get the f—k out of my shop you Klu Klux Klanners!”
That Jim Shaheen is a hateful person comes through loud and clear in the video. F—–g hypocrite!!
Estovir, trampling on women’s rights is hate pure and simple. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t get one.
What’s a woman?
Typical liberal stupidity. If you don’t believe in slavery, don’t own one, right?
“If you don’t believe in rape, don’t rape anyone.”
“If you don’t believe in bank robbery, don’t rob any banks.”
“If you don’t believe in mugging old ladies, don’t mug any.”
This is exactly what you are saying. NO woman has a “right” to kill a baby just because it’s inside her.
The pro-life group is simply anti-abortion. They only want to eliminate abortion as a way to punish women, some who are raped by their own father or close relative. Many because there is a substantial problem that will prevent the fetus from reaching term or surviving birth. Anti-abortion radical activists don’t care about any of those things, and they certainly don’t care what happens after delivery, particularly if that delivery is a corpse that exposes the mother to risk of death. Punishment is the goal.
If they were pro-life, they would demand that girls starting with their first period be raped to ensure they became pregnant as soon as possible and that they would be raped as soon as possible after either a spontaneous miscarriage or after giving birth and be as continuously pregnant as possible until they reach menopause. But not one penny for any surviving infant, not one scintilla of child care or post partum care for the mother.
They read in Genesis that God made the woman’s plight to suffer from having children and that’s the anti-abortion guide and goal.
The above troll has never had carnal knowledge of a woman. He is an incel which makes his trolling comical if not sad as f***
The pro-life group is simply anti-abortion. They only want to eliminate abortion as a way to punish women.
Riiiiiiiiiiight. That’s all they want to do. Punish women. They don’t really care about unborn children being torn limb from limb or burned in a saline solution. Oh, no, they’re just out to get women. Those, bad, bad people. Tisk tisk.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
Meet Baby Olivia.
You want to rationalize the decapitation, mutilation, dismemberment, poisoning, etc. of wholly innocent preborn children. I would state the obvious that you are a monster, but you already know what you are.
Turley Writes:
“Sheehan declared that “in my world” pro-lifers are no different from the Ku Klux Klan.”
For nearly 50 years, as anti-abortion legislators in states around the country have chipped away at the constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion, they have done so with the steady drumbeat of violence at their back.
Though violence and threats of violence directed against abortion providers have been a prominent aspect of abortion in the United States since Roe was decided, anti-abortion legislators would like to ignore this history. Instead, they try to frame the history of post-Roe abortion as a “hard issue” and one of mere “controversy” that should be settled by these same state legislators. But decades of violence make clear that the debate over abortion in America isn’t a matter of some “civil disagreement.” It is the subject of unrelenting attacks by those who have no regard for the rule of law.
Anti-abortion Violence:1977-2020
11 Murders
26 Attempted Murders
956 Death Threats
624 Stalkings
4 Kidnappings
42 Bombings
194 Arsons
667 Bomb Threats
Source: National Abortion Federation
https://msmagazine.com/2022/05/06/anti-abortion-violence-terrorism-roe-v-wade/
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A shocking amount of violence has been committed by so-called ‘pro-lifers’. For that reason every self-respecting liberal detests the anti-abortion forces. We also detest the Federalists on the current Supreme Court for rewarding years of anti-abortion violence by overturning Roe. Mr Sheehan was absolutely correct in comparing the anti-abortion goons to the KKK.
A shocking amount of murders have been committed by Planned Parenthood and their abortionist doctors. Some pro choice people have even lobbied for murder up to and beyond the moment of birth.
I don’t know how any person of age can support this kind of debauchery for anything but a very limited narrow range.
For nearly 50 years, as anti-abortion legislators in states around the country have chipped away at the constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion
There is no such right. There never was any such right. Roe v Wade was a dishonest decision that deliberately lied about the law.
And violence against abortionists, especially when the law refuses to stop them, is 100% justified. Stopping an abortionist from killing babies is no different from stopping a mass shooter in a mall. If it’s possible to stop him without killing him, then killing him is not justified. But if killing him is the only way to stop him killing more babies, then it’s 100% justified and those who did so are heroes.
You say anti-abortion violence was responsible for 11 murders over the course of 24 years. But every abortion is a murder. Pro-abortion violence was responsible for millions of murders over that time. You don’t seem to care about that.
“And violence against abortionists, especially when the law refuses to stop them, is 100% justified.”
Vigilantism. Charming.
And you claim to love the rule of law.
When the law refuses to stop murder or robbery, then people must stop it themselves. There’s nothing wrong with vigilantism when it’s the only alternative. The rule of law is much preferable to private action, but when it’s not available it’s not available. It doesn’t mean people should just be helpless.
There was a period when the law, in the South, refused to protect black people. Black people reacted by protecting themselves. Are you seriously suggesting they were wrong to do so?!
“They Weren’t Just ‘Customers’”
Breaking, Bombshell, Headline News:
Many people (for decades) go to a coffee shop more than just as a customer. They buy something, then they (gasp) socialize, do homework, conduct business, play games, hold real or virtual meetings.
I guess for the Left, holding a Woke meeting is legally protected. But not a non-Woke one.
Many people (for decades) go to a coffee shop more than just as a customer. They buy something, then they (gasp) socialize, do homework, conduct business, play games, hold real or virtual meetings.
The greatest metric of a person is the ability to form and maintain intimate relationships.
After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends? Or how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends? The greater it is, the more exposed is it to risk. And in poverty and in other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. It helps the young, too, to keep from error; it aids older people by ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to noble actions-‘two going together’-for with friends men are more able both to think and to act. Again, parent seems by nature to feel it for offspring and offspring for parent, not only among men but among birds and among most animals; it is felt mutually by members of the same race, and especially by men, whence we praise lovers of their fellowmen. We may even in our travels how near and dear every man is to every other. Friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity seems to be something like friendship, and this they aim at most of all, and expel faction as their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.
-Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII
Goodwill properly speaking is that act of the will whereby we wish well to another
– St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Second Part of the Second Part, Question 27
“…on the basis of religious or political views.”
Sadly, politics is the new religion for many people in the US & Europe (Western Civilization is now crumbling under the weight of people who can’t tell the difference between a religious belief and a political opinion that’s been propagandized—by both parties—into a belief).
More From Turley’s Link
Video footage shows Sheehan telling the group to meet at the public library instead.
“This is my place of business,” Sheehan says in the video. “I did a lot of work to get people on the ballot so women would have the right to choose in the state of Idaho, and this is something I do not support, nor does my wife, and it’s our business. So we have that choice.”
He defended his right to host groups at his choice and said he objected to his business being associated with a cause that he and his wife adamantly opposed.
“I figured they would respect my wishes and not hold it there,” he told the outlet.
Sheehan said his coffee shop is openly liberal, flies the pride flag and hosts LGBTQ coffee meet-ups.
Sheehan says he and his wife have received “nonstop death threats” following the confrontation.
https://nypost.com/2026/08/20/business/idaho-coffee-shop-owner-defends-making-pro-life-group-leave-after-nonstop-death-threats/
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It is obvious the coffee shop was targeted by this group. And the fact that the Sheehan’s have received so many death threats totally validates their KKK analogy; a comparison Turley ridicules.
Turley Writes:
In 2023, however, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for free speech in 303 Creative v. Elenis. It ruled that Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer, could refuse to provide services for a same-sex marriage. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that “the framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think.’ … They did so because they saw the freedom of speech ‘both as an end and as a means.’”
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It certainly appears that Mr Sheehan was within his Writes to tell this group to take their meeting elsewhere.
Sounds more like Antifa…
The death threats is a antifa tactic. They make anonymous death threats to make people look like they are targets of conservatives. It is just left spin.
I wonder if the Sheehans stupidity is effecting their bottom line yet. It will, a very stupid business decision.
I think teenagers concerned about preserving life of an unborn child is a good and noble thing. It should be nourished instead of spinning killing it, chopping it up and sucking it out to a waste bin as women’s health.
Much less than the stupidity of not knowing the difference between “affecting” and “effecting”.
It seems as if they are excluding people who are there to cause trouble, not people who would be there for any other reason. Might as well wear a Nazi uniform to enter a Synagogue. I expect their business to increase.
This is the kind of hyperventilating hyperbole that reveals the inability of pro-abortionists to form even one rational thought.
Oh yes indeed, call the local high school students supporting life Nazis. Winning the hearts and minds of their parents and friends, quite effective!
People who support abortion are Nazis. There’s no difference between abortion and the Holocaust.
Per many of the conservatives, all liberals deserve to be killed – many make that remark in comments on this blog. It is part of the rage that Turley
I’ve never seen a remark like that on this blog, you liar. OTOH, the left has created an assassination chic culture in which they celebrate the murder of conservatives, and cheer the murder of health care executives, making folk heroes out of the murderers. Between that and their bloodlust for the dead bodies of unborn babies, the left is truly the culture of hate and death.
When you are exercising your right as a business owner to deny service do you need to provide a reason ?
What if I just say “I want you to leave my establishment”, and the customer says “why”.. I just say “I do not want you here”.
Will the authorities compel me to testify under oath to find the real reason? If not, why would an owner provide the reason for denying service.
The way the law has developed, public accommodations such as restaurants and stores open to the public, cannot legally exclude customers based on certain characteristics such as race, religion, or national origin. That’s why the segregated lunch counters of the 1950s have been outlawed. The store owner was within his rights here to exclude pro-life people, regardless of how rude he was, especially in comparing pro-lifers to the KKK.
Those idiotic “laws” are unconstitutional.
The right to private property, which is distinctly not public property, is as absolute as the intent of communists to abolish private property.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
Assemble however you choose but give notice. Forced anything isn’t freedom.