BuzzFeed announced that it would not honor a $1.3 million advertising contract with the Republican Party because Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. I suspect other businesses will have similar qualms, as we are already seeing with some rock musicians not letting Trump’s campaign play their songs. So how is that any different, asks Mollie Hemingway, from a Christian baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding?
She says that businesses should have the right to express their moral objections by not selling to certain clients, but asks why media corporations–including BuzzFeed–demonize the little guys who do this, while doing it themselves on a much bigger scale?
From Mollie Hemingway, BuzzFeed: We Refuse To Bake The GOP’s Pro-Trump Advertising Cake, The Federalist:
BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti announced in an e-mail to staff on Monday that the company would be reneging on a $1.3 million contract it had signed with the Republican National Committee in April for political advertisements that would run prior to the 2016 election. . . .
Peretti said the breaking of the contract was due to conscientious objections the corporation had with the views of the nominee of the party, as well as his tone. I have a few thoughts on the whole ordeal.
1) Conscience Protections For Me, But Not For Thee
Corporations and the individuals who run them should have the right to deny services that violate their consciences. That’s as true for large, powerful media corporations such as BuzzFeed as it is for tiny, private florists and cake bakers. Except that the current groupthink in which BuzzFeed swims says that it should only be true for large, powerful media corporations but not for, say, Barronelle Stutzman.
Stutzman is the Christian florist in Richland, Washington, who faithfully served a gay client every week for nine years. The two became friends and when the client, Rob Ingersoll, needed flowers for his wedding to a same-sex partner, he asked Stutzman to provide them. She declined, on religious grounds, explaining it would violate her conscience. She is being sued by Washington State and the American Civil Liberties Union and stands to lose her home, her retirement savings, everything.
Companies in a free society should be allowed to refuse services based on moral stances. BuzzFeed should consider this when covering dissenters who don’t hold the same power and wealth that BuzzFeed does.
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