moral obligation to provide for their employees and customers. If taking a public stance on a hot-button issue compromises your ability to do either of those things, then the decision is not as clear-cut. You will then have to decide which moral obligation you feel is more important to you. I would strongly suggest involving your employees in this decision-making process, since they will be the ones who will have to deal with whatever public response/outcry/backlash occurs as a result of any public stance you take. Also, I think it is important to acknowledge that there are some things that, while you might not like to do them, don’t rise to the level of “compromising your moral values”. In that case, I would suggest that it might be better not to take a public political stance—depending on your answer to the next two questions. Question #2: Will having your business take a public stance on a hot-button political issue help or hurt the cause that you believe in? Other ways to ask this question would be: Will your business’s actions move the needle in the direction you want it to move? Will they even have any impact at all, other than making you feel like you’re “doing something”? Are there possible unforeseen consequences that could end up having the opposite effect than what you intend? In some cases these questions might be difficult or impossible to answer, but in other cases they aren’t. For example, putting up a sign outside your business that you don’t serve Democrats (or Republicans) will almost certainly not move the needle at all, and will make a lot of people very angry with you. On the other hand, putting up a sign outside your business stating that your business is a “politics-free zone” and banning any piece of clothing, button, sign, etc. that makes a political statement might help make people feel safer doing business with you. Or, it could get you sued by someone who feels like you are
somehow violating their right to free speech (whether or not that lawsuit would be successful, I have no idea). The point is that if your answer to the first question is that your moral values are not in danger of being compromised, and your answer to the second question is that taking whatever stance you are considering will not move the needle, then I think it is pretty clear that you shouldn’t do it. Question #3: Are you prepared to deal with the consequences? This is the most important question on the list, because if the answer is “no”, then your answer to the other two questions becomes irrelevant. You must be prepared to deal with any consequences that arise from your decision to have your business take a public political stance. There are some consequences that are very predictable—like negative comments on social media, people leaving fake reviews on your business’s profiles, and— sadly—threats (credible or not) to your personal safety and/or the safety of your employees and physical place of business. Less predictable consequences could include having a story about your business on the front page of every major newspaper in the country or appearing in a case before the United States Supreme Court. Those consequences might not be likely, but they are possibilities, and they are possibilities that you need to think about before taking whatever action or stance you are considering. While I will not make a blanket judgement as to whether it is good or bad when a local business takes a position on a hot-button political issue, I think that doing so without careful consideration is bad and should be avoided.
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