Conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh has been challenged by pro-abortion activists who “caught” him as he dined at a restaurant in downtown Washington. The judge, who has been the focus of a controversial appointment by Donald Trump to the Supreme Court, over allegations of sexual harassment he allegedly committed while he was in high school, made one of the crucial votes for abortion rights. He was forced out of the back of the Morton Steakhouse after a crowd of protesters gathered in front of the restaurant.
Politicians protesting in restaurants and other public places have become a classic of an increasingly polarized America. “We have to raise hell, in our cities, in every restaurant where Judge Alito will eat for the rest of his life, since Republicans have made our lives hell, it’s time to return the favor,” famous comedian Samantha B said, right after the court’s ruling, referring to the judge who actually wrote the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide for more than 50 years.
Only during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings–which in 2018 was marked by a massive protest movement of women in support of witness, Christine Blasey Ford, who entered the courtroom to accuse the future judge of assaulting her–Republican Senator Ted Cruz was forced to flee a side exit of the elegant restaurant amidst “Viola.” Besieged by protesters who chanted “we believe the victims”.
Also that same year, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was booed and challenged for choosing to dine at MXDC’s popular Mexican restaurant Cocina Mexicana just as the Trump administration was accused of violating the rights of Mexicans and other immigrants at the center. America is forcibly separating families at the border. For the same reason, Stephen Miller, Trump’s anti-immigration ideologist, was accused of being a “fascist” by a dinner he met at another restaurant in the capital.
These incidents are relaunched on social media, often becoming an episode of bad publicity for the restaurants in question. As it happens to Morton who immediately condemned the protests: “Politics, regardless of situations, should not impede the right to meet and eat,” he wrote on social media, causing a chain of reactions and negative comments by users.
Nor did a member of the Biden administration, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, condemn public protests against conservatives like Kavanaugh, especially after “repealing an important right that most Americans support.”
The young minister, and a former White House candidate, intervened, defending a tweet from her husband, Chasten Buttigieg, who noted that the conservative judge “wanted some privacy in his decisions over dinner,” referring to the fact that the court ruling denies that privacy right protects a woman’s right to Choice in matters of abortion.
The Democrat added, “No public figure should be subject to violence, intimidation, or harassment, but can never demand freedom from criticism and protests expressed under the First Amendment.”
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