FLWR, a liberal-owned flower shop in Nashville, Tenn., declined a request from the Republican National Committee (RNC) for floral arrangements due to the party’s stance on gun control. The business also urged other companies in the area to do the same, refusing to accept any business or money from the Republican Party until its stance on gun control changes.
“Last week we received a request to provide floral design services for an RNC fundraising event planned to take place in our city in mid-April, featuring Donald Trump and other prominent members of the Republican party,” FLWR said in a statement posted to Instagram. “We immediately declined this ‘opportunity,’ and we want to take this moment to publicly clarify our stance as small business owners in Nashville, Tennessee.”
“We would like to challenge others in the Nashville event industry to say no to taking money or jobs from the Republican party until they begin to make the changes to gun laws that most Americans are calling for.”
The post continued by blaming the Republican Party for the mass shooting committed by a transgender-identifying woman. “Our community has just lost seven people, including three young children, to yet another school shooting. At this moment I cannot ignore the work that the RNC has done to create this tragedy and so many others just like it.”
And then, right on cue, the standard Democrat Party talking point kicked in. “The Republican party not only refuses to enact change, but many members of the party have worked to pass legislation that makes this problem worse, like the recent changes to gun laws here in Tennessee,” the post continued. “The Republican Party has wasted taxpayer money and precious legislative will on banning drag shows, rather than assault rifles that are being used to murder children in their classrooms.”
So you see, the Republican Party is to blame because it’s trying to ban children from being exploited at sexualized drag shows instead of banning guns! How profound.
Okay, first of all, FLWR did the Republican Party a favor. The company explained it was a rather large job, and they could have made a lot of money from it, but chose not to, likely figuring that they could probably make more money virtue signaling their anti-gun, pro-kids-at-drag-shows positions, and go viral. Congratulations, I suppose; it appears to have worked. But, hey, I’m sure there’s another business that the RNC would be better off giving their money to; if FLWR doesn’t want the RNC’s money, fine, refuse to serve them. Again, they’re doing them a favor by giving them an opportunity to support a different business that might share their values.
But what really gets me about this is that Colorado-based Christian bakery owner Jack Phillips has been fighting in court over his refusal to bake cakes for same-sex weddings since 2012. Despite a Supreme Court victory in 2018, he would go on to face another civil lawsuit in 2021 for refusing to bake a cake celebrating a gender transition. In other words, he was targeted by LGBT activists who knew his values didn’t align with their own in order to have a pretext to sue him for the crime of having different values. Phillips is not alone either; other Christian-owned businesses, including florists, have been targeted with similar lawsuits.
Yet when liberal-owned businesses refuse to serve customers with opposing values, they flaunt it, celebrate it, and get away with it. Perhaps the RNC should sue FLWR for discrimination. If the radical left is going to make up rules for everyone else, it should be forced to live by the same rules.
