Flower Mound, Texas, is about thirty miles northwest of Dallas. It straddles two counties: Denton, in which Trump won 56 percent of the vote, and Tarrant, which was evenly split between Trump and Harris in 2024. Folks are mostly friendly, and the area has been designated a “top US suburb” by some of the organizations that do that sort of designating.
It is also the location of Hive Bakery, owned and operated by local resident Haley Popp. And Ms. Popp has become famous.
Not because she is a renowned baker — though that’s true; she even appeared on Food Network — but because of something she didn’t bake. Ms. Popp became locally famous, even notorious, for refusing to bake a “Congratulations, Donald Trump!” cake for some customers.
But perhaps we should start at the beginning.
Ms. Popp is a “progressive” (her word), and a minor celebrity in the food world. In October, to recognize the Vice Presidential debate, she created and advertised a “Tim Walz Cookie,” with the Democrat VP candidate’s face surrounded by blue sugar icing atop each confection. (In fairness, there is a self-mocking vibe to the store, as in this “FU Anti-Valentine’s Cookie”, so it’s hard to take very seriously.)
Amazingly, but also unsurprisingly, Ms. Popp received protests, criticism, and some vague threats. Ms. Popp, who for a Progressive understands capitalism well, responded:
Here’s the thing. I don’t give a f– if you don’t want to buy a cake from me because I put out Tim Walz cookies. I couldn’t care less what your opinion of me is, nor do I think twice about your unsolicited advice on how I should run my business. You don’t like me? Don’t come here. You don’t like that I post political s–t? Unfollow. You are irrelevant.
The lady makes cookies, cakes, bread. You want to buy some, do it. If not, don’t. If she makes more, or less, profit because of what she offers for sale, that’s on her. Nothing to see here, folks!
Except…there is something to see. Consider two events from the mid-2010s wokeness frenzy:
Event 1: A pizza restaurant in Indiana was threatened and boycotted in March 2015 because an employee gave an honest answer to a question: would you sell pizza to cater a same-sex marriage? The answer was that the restaurant would sell pizza to anyone, but would prefer not to provide specialized, contracted catering services to that wedding. The implication was that heterosexual weddings were fine, but same-sex weddings were not, in terms of what the restaurant would cater.
There was an amazingly strong response to an employee’s answer to a hypothetical question. A sample of the Twitter response (since deleted): “Who’s going to Walkerton with me to burn down Memories Pizza.” This video response is typical of the sarcasm and anger that was focused on the staff, despite no one actually asking the restaurant to cater weddings. The restaurant had to close, to protect its employees, and when it reopened it struggled, closing permanently in 2018.
Event 2: Today’s, a jewelry store and fabricator in Mount Pearl in Newfoundland, Canada, has a reputation for being able to make lovely custom rings to the customers’ specifications. The store accepted an offer from a lesbian couple, Nicole White and Pam Renouf, to create their design for wedding rings, also in March 2015, exactly the same time that the Indiana pizza restaurant was being attacked for refusing service.
The couple paid a deposit, received the rings, and were delighted. They paid the remainder of the contracted cost, and prepared to get married the following year. They recommended Today’s to friends. One of the friends, on visiting the store, saw a sign: “The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let’s keep marriage between a man and a woman.” The friend took a photo, and shared it widely, including sending it to the couple who had made the original purchase.
The couple, though happy with their rings and the service they had received, were outraged that the jeweler had hidden his views about same-sex marriage. The owner, Esau Jordan, explained in an interview that he posted various signs throughout the year, and it was only by accident that (apparently) this sign had been posted when White and Renouf’s friend had visited the store. The couple demanded a refund, even though they had no complaint and the rings were in no way faulty or deficient. At first, owner Jordan refused, but he was subjected to so many threats and so much personal abuse that he ultimately relented, refunding the money and taking back the rings.
Darned If You Do…Anything
Interestingly, there appeared to be uniform support in mainstream media — remember, both of these events happened in March, 2015 — for criticizing both Memories Pizza and Today’s Jewelers.
Memories Pizza was targeted because staff — in response to a hypothetical question — declined to provide a privately contracted service for a same-sex wedding.
Today’s Jeweler non-hypothetically provided both favorable service and a quality product, fulfilling the terms of a contract for rings used in a same-sex wedding, but later posted a critique.
Both of these responses outraged observers. But if a business owner cannot use a religious objection to deny a service, but also can’t keep quiet about a religious objection in providing a service, what is being punished? Remember, the pizza store had to close, and the jeweler had to refund a substantial payment for a product it could not resell. It would seem that the answer is that it is simply unacceptable to run a business while dissenting from the orthodoxy that dominates mainstream media.
Why don’t people just accept the wisdom of Haley Popp: either buy / sell, or don’t. But I don’t care what you think, and there is no reason for you to care what I think. It’s a commercial transaction, not a political endorsement.
Our fundamental freedom of association must include both the choice with whom to associate, and also with whom not to associate. This discrimination on the part of a private person is among our core civil liberties, both in politics and in economic contracts.
We suspend some of that right to discriminate under the well-established common law doctrine of “implied contract,” an offer associated with being ‘open for business.’ If I advertise prices for goods or services, I have some obligation to honor the offer when someone takes me up on it. If I open a pizza restaurant with prices, sizes, and toppings listed on a board, I am obliged to provide those pizzas, with those toppings, at those prices. I have some latitude to refuse service for cause, if the person is drunk, obstreperous, too loud, or too smelly. And of course I might run out of a topping, or my oven could break, preventing me from making good on the implied offer.
When, on the other hand, my services involve an actual, direct contract with written terms, I have no obligation to enter into such agreements, and my refusal can generally be for any reason, or for no reason at all. When you ask if I want to sign a specific contract to cater your wedding, I have made no implied offer to cater, and I am free to say no. If I agree, however, and provide the contracted service, you have no basis for demanding a refund, unless there was a violation of the terms of the specific contract we signed.
So, the pizza restaurant should have been protected against being obligated to cater a same-sex wedding, or in fact any wedding or any other event, for any reason. Many residents of Flower Mound assert their universal right to refuse to do business with to the owners of Memories Pizza, while punishing the owners for exercising that right themselves. But if people are obliged to do business, and do so well, how can they later be punished, as in the case of Today’s Jewelers?
Now, it may be too much to expect full consistency from people. I understand that. Haley Popp’s view that if you don’t like her cookies, then don’t buy them, is a good start. I’m willing to bet that Ms. Popp herself has participated in boycotts. After the election, several Trump fans requested that Ms. Popp make elaborate cakes for their “inauguration parties,” and celebrations of Trump winning the election. Ms. Popp had refused, but last week she came around.
It’s hard to know whether the real reason was that she was tired of crank calls, threats, and social media abuse, or whether it was worth making large custom cakes because they pay well. But in any case, Ms. Popp announced, “Okay, I’ll make your stupid cakes.”
Prosperity flourishes when businesses serve customers, not ideologies—and when customers choose, not coerce. Perhaps we’d all do better to prioritize peaceful exchange and good service, rather than political lockstep.
