A restaurant stood up to Doug Wilson’s Christian Nationalists—and won

Saffire pledged its profits to charity, supported protesters, and watched the “Fight Laugh Feast” organizers cancel their own lunch bookings

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A restaurant in Franklin, Tennessee is receiving lots of love after explaining how they handled an event involving a group of bigoted Christian Nationalists.

Theocrat Doug Wilson is the guy who’s built himself a mini-empire centered around his Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to vote because men should make that decision for the household.

He believes abortion and homosexuality should be criminalized. He has said sodomy is “worse than slavery,” that abortion is “as great an evil as slavery,” and that slavery was a net positive because it “produced in the South a genuine affection between the races.”

Wilson protects abusers over the abused.

Wilson doesn’t believe Muslims, Hindus, or even “liberal” Christians should be allowed to hold office.

Naturally, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is one of his followers.

This weekend, Wilson is hosting his “Fight Laugh Feast” conference in Franklin, Tennessee. (One of the talks on the schedule? “The Next Crusade: Lessons from the Crusades for Today.”) That means a slew of male Christian losers will descend upon the city to convince each other how amazing and alpha they all are.

There was a petition to have The Factory, the massive complex where the conference is being held, cancel the event, but owners said they didn’t know who this group was when the space was booked, that they were contractually obligated to let them have their event, and that they would re-evaluate their own policies in the future. It’s a very boilerplate Ed Sheeran-like statement that has no teeth to it.

That said, there’s an in-person protest scheduled outside The Factory this Saturday, on the final day of the conference.

There was a more direct response from artist Allison Fullerton, who had an exhibit scheduled to go up this weekend at The Factory. Once she learned Wilson’s group would be there, she announced she was withdrawing from the venue: “I don’t want to be anywhere near this man or his organization.”

Another courageous response came from a restaurant called Saffire, which is inside the Factory venue. They were booked for two 50-person luncheons this weekend, and co-owner Kendall Morales said there was no indication of who made the reservation. The person used a “non-descript Gmail address” that didn’t have any clear connection to a hate group. It was only in recent days that she found out this was Doug Wilson’s organization.

“We started doing digging into (the conference) like, ‘Okay, what is this group? Who are they?’ That’s when we realized and it kind of blew our minds, actually.”

Morales said they were most concerned about Wilson’s name being associated with the event because they were aware of his political opinions.

“Not wanting women to be able to vote, pro-slavery was very concerning, and then just the imprisonment of LGBTQ people. We have a lot of people that work at our restaurants, servers, chefs, etc. that fall under a lot of those categories. It definitely didn’t align with our values. We want to make sure that our staff feel safe and protected, so it was definitely very concerning,” Morales said.

Like the conference venue, the restaurant couldn’t say no to the booking just because of the religious beliefs of the attendees—their lawyers said as much—so instead, they released a statement saying any money made from the hate group would be donated to World Central Kitchen. Morales added: “As a female owned and operated restaurant where everyone is welcome, we represent everything this group is against.”

Morales later said she plans to provide snacks and waters to the people participating in the peaceful protest at The Factory on Saturday—”along with voter registration resources.” She also (rightly) urged frustrated members of the public not to take their anger out on the small businesses caught in the crossfire.

Based on the responses to her post, she’s getting plenty of love from the community. Whatever money they’re not making from these guys, they’re going to recover in spades.

The backlash seems to have had an effect. The hate group’s luncheon bookings at Saffire were canceled late this week. Still, Morales says she will have her team change language in its reservation package so that clients have to disclose the nature of their events.

"We will continue to welcome all indiscriminately, no matter your race, religion, gender, sexuality, or creed. This new disclosure requirement will be judged solely on the event's purpose, not individual beliefs, and we will specifically review safety concerns for our team and guests. An event whose purpose is to call for removing the human rights of our team members is inherently unsafe," she said.

Why were the bookings canceled? The CEO of the Christian conference, Gabriel Rench, issued an unhinged statement from his lawyer the next day blaming Morales for creating an unsafe environment for white Christians like him:

Dear Ms. Morales and Saffire Management:

My client was deeply disappointed to learn that your restaurant made a public social media post that disclosed the location and dates of private events. Your decision and the specific assertions in your social media post have put the safety of our guests at risk and raised concerns that your staff would not provide professional and appropriate service.

This message is in reference to the private dining agreements for the business luncheon on Friday, October 2, 2026, and the business brunch on Saturday, October 3, 2026, both scheduled in the Blue Room. I write to notify you that my client’s [sic] have no choice but to cancel both events, effective immediately, as a result of your actions.

To be very specific, my client has serious concerns about the safety of attendees in light of public statements attributed to the restaurant on social media… My client is aware that the restaurant’s social-media discussion has already drawn more than 300 comments and is concerned about the possibility of protests at the events, including by anti-Christian hate groups who may harass and present a safety risk to the participants. Whether or not any protest ultimately occurs, these circumstances combined with a social media post related to private events, raise concerns about attendees’ safety and your staff’s ability to serve our guests. My client is not comfortable asking guests to attend either event.

Lol. It’s always projection and deflection from these people. The Factory is listed on their website, even if the restaurant wasn’t, and the only people in danger were the people guys like Rench believe should be deported and locked up.

He later issued a separate statement to the news media that was even more unhinged, blaming the “leftist” in the middle of (ruby-red) Tennessee for not welcoming white male saviors like him.

First off, the leftist in the city of Franklin, and the adjacent Antifa (a designated terrorist organization), have rejected the foundations of America. American is a Christian nation, although in decline, and as a Christian nation we need to repent of our political idolatry, the 60M babies we have killed since 1973, return to Jesus our Savior, who alone is King of kings for the forgiveness of sins. The clash you are seeing in the city of Franklin regarding our conference, is a clash of worldviews, good vs evil, light verses darkness, and so forth. Leftist want to destroy America, they want to murder babies in their mother’s womb up to nine months of pregnancy, and they don’t even know what a man or a woman is anymore. Leftist are not rational and they need to repent of their sins, or they will go to hell. Return to Christ, return to the light of truth, rational reasoning, to the truth that Jesus died for the sins of the world, and that it is only through Christ that you can be truly washed and clean from all your

Secondly, debates with people who do know what a man or a woman is, is pointless. We can’t even agree on basic terms, why would they have the capacity to even follow basic arguments. In addition to this, they are not even capable of accurately representing our views on voting, the sin of homosexuality, and the tragedy of slavery and the not-so-Civil War. These are all important issues, but not really to leftist. They don’t really care about protecting voting in America, which is evidence by their insane destructive immigrations policies. They don’t really care about homosexuals, which is demonstrated by their lust to push irreversible surgical harm on minors, and slavery…are you kidding me. The Democratic Party, was the party of slavery.

And this jackass is somehow the intellectual in the group.

(Kudos to the news station WSMV for not sane-washing his comments and just copy-pasting that gibberish as is.)

Even if these Christian Nationalists relish the outrage they’re provoking, public condemnation is exactly what they deserve. They’re not being censored. They’re holding their conference and delivering their speeches. Others are simply using their own freedom to make clear that those seeking to strip women, LGBTQ people, and religious minorities of their rights shouldn’t expect a warm welcome—or a conflict-free meal.

That discomfort matters. I want Wilson and Rench and everyone associated with them to have to look over their shoulders anywhere they go because that’s precisely what they’re doing to everyone else. Wilson’s entire movement wants its targets to feel unsafe everywhere: at school, at work, in government, in marriage, and even in their own bodies.

We have to worry about losing our civil rights and having Trump’s weaponized ICE thugs haul away our friends and loved ones for no reason.

These assholes are upset because they can’t have lunch in a particular restaurant.

And now, suddenly, they’ve discovered the importance of safety and tolerance. They’re demanding a level of acceptance that they would eagerly deny to everyone outside their own white Christian male hierarchy.

That’s because none of these guys want religious freedom. They want a theocracy ruled by men like them. That’s why everyone else needs to respond effectively, peacefully making their lives as unpleasant as possible. If Wilson’s group feels unwelcome because the public wants nothing to do with them, too bad. May they always carry that feeling. Comfort is the last thing they deserve while working to destroy everyone else’s lives with their white Christian allies in the Trump administration.

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