[Federalist] Remember how it was the height of bigotry for religious objectors to decline to participate in a gay wedding? But now it's brave to decline to sell Melania Trump a dress.To the many things the Trump administration in waiting has made cool again, add private businesses refusing service to customers based on moral objections.
Friday, fashion designer Sophie Theallet, who has dressed the current first lady Michelle Obama, offered a preemptive refusal to hypothetically dress the next first lady, Melania Trump, should she ask for some of her clothes-- presumably not the ones available at The Gap. In her unsolicited letter, Theallet informed the world that a person who did not ask for any of her clothes would not be getting them.
"As one who celebrates and strives for diversity, individual freedom and respect for all lifestyles, I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next First Lady," the letter reads. "The rhetoric of racism, sexism, and xenophobia unleashed by her husband’s presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by."
"I encourage my fellow designers to do the same," it goes on.
In refusing service to Trump, Theallet appealed to "individual freedom" and the idea of her art as an expression of the company’s "artistic and philosophical ideals." Her announcement was called "noble," "patriotic," and "admirable integrity."