Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, was sitting in a coffee shop in Driggs, Idaho on Monday night with her 16-year-old son Bear and more than 10 local community members. They'd bought their food. They weren't chanting. They weren't waving signs. They were having a conversation about offering free services to pregnant and parenting mothers in the Teton Valley area.
That's when the owner of Wydaho Roasters Coffee House, Jim Sheehan, walked over and told them to get out.
"I have made it very clear that I did not want you here," Sheehan told the group, according to video of the incident first reported by Louder with Crowder. When pressed on why he was ejecting paying customers who were sitting quietly, Sheehan reached for an analogy that tells you everything you need to know about where his head is at.
"It's like, if the KKK asked to meet here, I would say no."
Hawkins asked the obvious follow-up. "So you think pro-lifers are like the KKK?"
Sheehan's answer: "In my world, it's the same sort of concept."
You can watch the exchange for yourself here
Let's walk through this slowly for the folks in the back. The Ku Klux Klan is a domestic terrorist organization responsible for lynchings, bombings, and a century of racially motivated murder across the American South. The group sitting in Jim Sheehan's coffee shop wants to help pregnant women keep their babies. In Sheehan's world, those two things are "the same sort of concept."
The group Sheehan booted included Bear Hawkins, Kristan's 16-year-old son and the founder of Campaign for Abortion Free Cities. They were holding their first meeting at the cafe to organize opposition to a late-term abortion referendum scheduled for Idaho voters on November 3. The meeting consisted of moms, teenagers, and community members sitting at tables they'd paid to sit at.
Terrifying stuff.
Hawkins responded the way you'd expect someone to respond when they've just been compared to a hate group for the crime of ordering a latte. "We paid for our food. We weren't protesting or disrupting anyone," she said. "We were simply sitting together having a peaceful conversation."
She added: "We were kicked out because we're pro-life and work to protect babies."
Sheehan, for his part, apparently views himself as some kind of brave resistance figure. He told the group he'd done political work to get people on the ballot who would protect a woman's "right to choose" in Idaho. So he's not just a coffee shop owner with opinions — he's a coffee shop owner with opinions and a sense of moral superiority so inflated it could float a parade balloon.
Here's the part that doesn't get enough attention. This happened in Idaho. Not Portland. Not Brooklyn. Not Berkeley. Driggs, Idaho — population roughly 2,000, deep in the Teton Valley. If a small-town cafe owner in one of the reddest states in America feels comfortable comparing pro-life advocates to the Klan on camera, that tells you something about how normalized this kind of thinking has become in certain circles.
The KKK burned crosses to terrorize Black families. Students for Life sets up diaper drives and pregnancy resource centers. One of these things involves violence. The other involves volunteering. Jim Sheehan looked at both and said, "Same sort of concept."
The pro-life movement wants to stop babies from being killed. The KKK killed people. Sheehan managed to get the analogy exactly backwards, which is almost impressive as an intellectual achievement.
When the comparison you reach for to describe people who advocate for unborn children is the most notorious hate group in American history, you haven't made a point. You've revealed one.