Confront political foes in public? Sarah Huckabee Sanders Even employee of president should grow a thick skin should get seat at restaurant

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Have you ever witnessed protesters lined up by a Planned Parenthood clinic, yelling and screaming at women, shaming them for daring to make decisions about their own bodies? Or do you recall Rep. Joe Wilson yelling out “you lie” in the middle of President Obama’s State of the Union in 2009? Or have you heard of a bakery owned by a Republican couple who denied Vice President Joe Biden from coming inside for some cookies and a photo-op (of course they became a conservative cause celeb in 2012). These are just a few examples of the shape “confronting” someone can take. The propriety of any of these is debatable, but their First Amendment protection is not.

Unlike the British parliamentary system, we do not have a “question hour” when the leader of the country presents him or herself on the hot seat, to be confronted by the people’s representatives, answering each and every uncomfortable question. Neither do we have a set-up in which the president makes himself available to public directly to be scrutinized. He controls his narrative from the Oval Office and hides behind Twitter.

Even media events such as town halls are micromanaged, where one only gets to ask preapproved questions, and our presidential debates is hardly Lincoln-Douglas style — nothing more than another chance for politicians to market themselves, avoiding real scrutiny.

So what is wrong with people — nonviolently, using words alone, singly or in groups — confronting members of the administration, who have the ear of the president or are actively involved in implementing his policies? Nothing.

As a matter of fact, we must recognize how rare these occurrences are. In a country of 350 million people, only 500 or so are directly work for the White House, out of which only a handful are nationally recognized figures, mainly because they appear on TV on behalf of the administration, in order to defend their policies.

It is hardly an epidemic to be worthy of a national debate. By labeling such verbal display of displeasure by the public as “incivility,” the Trump administration is seeking to suppress rights to free speech and assembly, and demanding “political correctness” — after bulldozing every norm of political civility themselves. But even if the Trump administration were the most well behaved and proper in the history of our country, Americans would still have the right to confront their representatives and their agents or emissaries, and to make a direct appeal to “redress their grievances” to affect a change in policy.

More important, what are the alternatives? Sending emails or calling the White House, or members of Congress? How many of us truly believe that those are even seen or ever read, by the people whom they are directed toward? How many of us have gotten a form letter as a response, even from our local representatives; it is very frustrating. And what you saw the council members or folks in Congress you were trying to call or email, out in public? Are they Hollywood celebrities who should be left alone for their privacy concerns, or are they public servants who have chosen to accept a public position, in which they have sworn to be transparent and held accountable by the public at large?

If they feel shamed or uncomfortable, they can resign — or perhaps they need to look in the mirror to reconsider their positions, and not use their bully pulpits to try to destroy small business, like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Trump did with The Red Hen in Virginia. Or perhaps they should grow a thick skin, as that is the bargain one makes when accepting powers that come with positions of public trust.

In a country where we allow Nazis and other white supremacist groups to march through streets with Tiki torches, a few people heckling political functionaries should hardly be news. Speaking truth to power — in any form — should never be controversial. COMMENTARY |

Unless you’ve been living in a subterranean cavern totally cut off from all contact with society, you’ve heard how President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was refused service at a restaurant in the little town of Lexington, Va.

Conservatives are making a big deal of it. And so they should. Because such refusal is indeed a big deal.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of the Huckabee brand. When Sarah was a youth in Little Rock, Ark., and her father was governor of the state, and I was a pastor there, I spent a lot of time in front of the governor’s mansion and at the state Capitol inveighing against an array of decisions her father made that I felt were contrary to both the gospel of Jesus Christ and the principles on which our great nation was founded.

And Sanders’ own public performance suggests that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Not only does she unflinchingly back a presidential agenda that’s routinely at odds with the very essence of what made the United States of America great in the first place, but her inability to tell the truth is truly mind-boggling.

However — and this is a truth that liberals and conservatives, Christians and atheists, and those of every other label need to grasp: No matter how much I may disagree with Sanders’ ideology, disapprove of her behavior and dislike what I feel she and her ilk are doing to the very fabric of American society, if I’m a business owner, I still should serve her. Just as Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, should have made a cake for his would-be clients who were gay.

Certainly, the United States is deeply committed to the rights of the individual. As individuals, we’re free to think what we will. And to a great degree, we’re free to act on our thinking. But when it comes to basic civil rights, individual liberties must become subservient to larger societal concerns and values. One person’s individual freedoms must not impinge unduly on the individual freedoms (i.e. rights) of others.

Society is a web of interconnectedness and interdependence. And because we’re so intertwined, we have certain reasonable expectations of all businesses.

The reality is that tax dollars contributed by citizens play a role in making businesses viable. Tax dollars provide much infrastructure, without which commerce would be difficult if not impossible. Tax dollars often fund low-interest loans so businesses can get started or continue to thrive.

And since, in varying degrees, most of us subscribe to the adage that the one who pays the piper calls the tune, we’re not willing to see businesses that we “subsidize” allowed to discriminate against specific individuals or groups — whether it’s happening at the Red Hen restaurant or Masterpiece Cakeshop.

It’s truly hypocritical if I as a liberal decry the refusal of a cake designer to serve a gay couple because he truly believes that gays are headed to hell, if I in turn am unwilling to provide service to a public figure who I feel just as strongly is helping to drag all of us into a figurative hell.

In the Bible — which seems to be quoted a lot of late — I read these words from Jesus: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”