The tale of Sarah Sanders and the Red Hen

It was serendipitous timing that the Supreme Court issued its order, instructing Washington's state Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling against Arlene’s Flowers, as debate raged over a Virginia restaurant that refused to serve dinner to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

Some conservatives compared the Red Hen’s refusal of service with freedom-of-conscience cases that have popped up recently as state and local agencies punish Christian bakers, florists, and photographers. “Bake the Cake!” conservatives joked on social media.

Ana Navarro, a conservative-turned-full-time-Trump-hater, argued that anyone who would “defend baker’s right to refuse service to gay couples” ought not to “whine" about people "refusing service to a person who’s the face of a deceitful administration. What’s good for the goose, is good for the Red Hen.”

But the analogy is inapt to the point of casuistry. Social liberals’ inability or refusal to see the difference is telling. Refusing to serve someone as an equal because of who he or she is is wholly different in kind from refusing to provide specialized services tailored to an event that in good conscience you find objectionable.

When Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson decided to persecute Baronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers, he said, “If Ms. Stutzman sells flowers to heterosexual couples, she must sell them to same-sex couples.”

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