DC's Morton's Steakhouse Responds To Brett Kavanaugh Protesters

On Wednesday, July 6 Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh intended to have a steak dinner at the D.C. branch of Morton's The Steakhouse. However, pro-choice protestors discovered him and congregated around the restaurant (per Politico). Apparently, Kavanaugh managed to finish his dinner but had to leave before dessert.

"We hear Kavanaugh snuck out the back with his security detail," ShutDownDC, an organizing space that promotes direct action as a form of protest, tweeted. "[Mortons] should be ashamed for welcoming a man who so clearly hates women."

The protest occurred two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. Since then, as NPR reported on July 3, the marshall of the Supreme Court called upon Maryland and Virginia to take action towards prohibiting protests in front of the homes of the justices. Rolling Stone shared that a barrier fence has also been set up around the Supreme Court to keep protestors at bay.

Morton's The Steakhouse gave a statement to Politico in response to the Kavanaugh protest, condemning the protestors as "unruly." Moreover, the restaurant chain asserted its stance that, "Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner."

As one might imagine, the claim that eating at a steakhouse is a right in the wake of a ruling that removed the right to an abortion because the constitution does not explicitly state it as such did not go down well with many, as shown by Twitter's response. "'The right to eat dinner,'" Katie Phang of MSNBC's The Katie Phang Show tweeted. "Sounds like a privacy right not identified or listed in the Constitution so therefore, it doesn't exist." New York Times Opinion writer and CBS News analyst Jamelle Bouie similarly wrote, "The right to eat dinner in peace? Sounds like an unenumerated right to me and are we sure those actually exist?"

No doubt similar stories will occur as many see peaceful, yet direct confrontations as the only means to get their ire across, but only time will tell if other restaurants decide to weigh in on the situation when it comes to their door.