Following the recent attack on Jussie Smollett in which his assailant allegedly shouted “This is MAGA country,” many online commenters are (once again) calling Trump’s trademark red caps the new “white hood” or “swastika,” comparing them to the hateful apparel of KKK members and Nazis.
One chef at a California restaurant recently deleted a tweet stating that they’d refuse to serve anyone wearing a MAGA hat. This led CNN to wonder: Is refusing to serve someone wearing a MAGA hat kind of like refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding?
It may sound like a dumb question, but it comes up a lot. In May 2018, transphobic alt-right podcaster Gavin McInnes claimed that MAGA hat wearers are treated as badly as gay people were in the 1950s, but it ain’t true. (While MAGA hat wearers occasionally get booted from bars and eateries, none have ever been tossed in jail just for hanging out with others like them.)
Related: Caitlyn Jenner spotted in “Make America Great Again” hat days after Trump’s transphobic attack
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Lemon asked attorney Chris Cuomo about the chef’s deleted tweet, and Cuomo compared anti-MAGA discrimination to the discrimination a same-sex couple faced when refused service by the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado in 2012.
Cuomo says it’s technically legal to refuse service to MAGA hat wearers, since some people view the hat similarly to t-shirts reading, “I hate black people.”
Referencing the Masterpiece court case, Cuomo said, “Well, that was about refusing service to a group of people that should be a protected class, and unless you could argue that Trump supporters should be a protected class, I don’t think you have much of an argument on that. So let’s say this isn’t so much about whether he has the right, it’s about whether or not it is right.”
Gay people and Trump-supporters experience different sorts of discrimination, but the institutional discrimination gay people face is much older and more widespread. Also, comparing gay people with Trump-supporters views each as a “chosen lifestyle” with a chosen set of “political beliefs.”
But most gay people feel they themselves are “born that way” whereas MAGA hat wearers “choose to be that way” even though MAGA hat wearers claim to “have no choice” but to support Trump because “the truth” compels them to, even though the guy lies about 10 times a day.
In short, homophobia and anti-MAGA discrimination aren’t even remotely similar. But while Lemon doesn’t think MAGA hat wearers should be banned from public places. he also understands that anti-MAGA ire goes far beyond mere anti-conservatism or disagreement with Trump:
Your clothing tells a story about who you are, what you think about, and what you represent. And also, life is not in a vacuum. That hat means a lot of things. If you’re gonna wear that hat – maybe that hat means the Central Park 5 to people, maybe it means birtherism to people, maybe it means Mexicans are rapists to people. So you cannot erase those things from the story of that hat and say, ‘well I’m just wearing it because I want stronger immigration.’ A lot of people want stronger immigration. It can’t just be about what you want it to be about.
That being said, the chef deleted their anti-MAGA tweet after they allegedly started receiving death threats from Trump supporters. The business owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop and the same-sex couple in that case both allegedly received death threats as well. Oh, America.
Polaro
The article is better than the headline. The premise that a choice to wear a hat is the same as one sexuality is absurd. Have people really gotten this dumb?
People wearing MAGA hats know they are being provocative. I see no problem with people wanting to provide them with a counterpoint, since the hat seems to be begging for that. MAGA hat wearers are real live trolls, so be prepared for a real life troll response. My preference is to ignore them.
[email protected]
don’t you just love how for decades gays encouraged acceptance and on and on now that we have a Pres that wants to end all the corruption in DC all of the sudden everyone has become a bad player wake up
Brian
Do we really want to start down that slippery slope? There are a heck of a lot of clothing choices I can think of that could be perceived as a reflection of somebody’s beliefs, whether it’s reasonable or not. A red shirt could be gang affiliation. A goth kid could be devil worship. A police t-shirt could be police brutality. A cowboy hat could be redneck racism.
Sometimes it really is ok to just let people live their own lives, even if you don’t agree with them.
Invader7
NO !!! Don Lemon another lame cable “news” desk jockey /talking head !!! Hey hey ,it’s time to go Ms. Lemon… That restaurant owner was well within his RIGHTS to include clothing /political apparel on the BANNED items list. The Drumpfies don’t like it- go somewhere else..And quit whining like a bunch of petulant babies !!!
DuMaurier
First of all, I don’t think men are supposed to wear hats in restaurants. Maybe I’m just old and stuffy.
On the actual issue, it would be sorta the ‘same’ if applicable laws protected against discrimination based on political viewpoint. There are a few places in the U.S. that do, but not many.
Rakkaus
Men definitely aren’t supposed to have sex with men, if you’re going to appeal to 1950 “old and stuffy” social norms.
Actually men being required to take hats off indoors dates to some quite sexist rambling by St. Paul in the Bible. Funny the norm that women must wear head coverings indoors at church has largely disappeared, women can choose to wear or not wear hats indoors or outdoors without judgment, but the social norm that men must take their hats off indoors persists. Then again, that is consistent with society generally much more strictly enforcing limited fashion norms on men than women-who can now dress in very unladylike t-shirt & jeans without getting a second look.
I Corinthians 11:3-10
“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered, disgraceth his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with her head not covered, disgraceth her head: for it is all one as if she were shaven.
For if a woman be not covered, let her be shorn. But if it be a shame to a woman to be shorn or made bald, let her cover her head. The man indeed ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man. Therefore ought the woman to have a power over her head, because of the angels.”