A fundamental argument against religious imagery fielded by liberals is that, in this world, you shouldn’t get a pass because any of your personal and arguably horrible beliefs about humanity or the social order might happen to coincide with some interpretation of your religion. Religion isn’t merely a shield, but can also be a weapon.

On the face of it, the principle is philosophically coherent. The argument against a single state-affiliated church stems from it, as even within one religion there are other denominations, and if European history teaches us anything, it can all get a little tense at times. 

Interestingly, however, the same liberal principle applies in reverse—against liberalism. 

For example, you might believe there are a certain number of genders. You might believe there’s a social need for an update on the idea of original sin and redemption, and a holy Pride month with your own peculiar rituals and flags and imagery festooning every building in America. But in this world, there must be consequences for shoving those beliefs down someone’s unwilling throat. It is still, technically, a free country, by its original design.

The said consequences were recently experienced by two giants, Bud Light and Target. Bud Light, a mediocre beer geared towards working-class Americans, had a transgender social media influencer prancing around in high heels. The beer’s sales immediately tanked after a mass boycott. Target, an overpriced department store for aspirational middle-class women, had a Pride display with satanic symbolism and transgender clothing—garments conducive to breast-binding and “tucking”—allegedly meant for kids. 

At the time of writing, Target’s stock had fallen five times faster than Bud Light’s after a similar time of boycott. Newsweek reports that, “in the first nine days of the Bud Light boycott, Anheuser-Busch stock dropped 2.42 percent. From May 17 to May 26, the same amount of time into the Target boycott, the company's stock price fell 13.5 percent.”

Conservatives are not natural activists by inclination. Mass boycott and planned economic targeting are tactics only recently discovered by most conservatives. But most “normal” and natural things in life are increasingly considered “far-right” by our enlightened sophisticates. Unfortunately for left-wing activists, most of the country is still “normal” and instinctively opposed to LGBT radicalism. That is at cross purposes with the activist leadership of all big businesses, pushing social liberalism, and LGBT politics. Sooner or later, they were destined to clash. 

But more importantly, the Napier principle of balancing is finally at work here. 

It is said that British General Sir Charles James Napier was walking around in colonial India, when a group of lower-caste Hindus came and complained that they should be allowed to immolate widows in a funeral pyre, as that was “customary.” Napier replied that they are free to do that, and that next to the pyre there will be a gallows erected by the British-Indian garrison, as it is also both British custom and law to hang those who murder people. 

Markets don’t just self-correct. They are forced to. Target and Bud Light (and a majority of the normal people and conservatives) are slowly realizing that. Their share-holders should blame the company for the losses and the breach of fiduciary trust. 

Many other American companies will eventually realize that pushing LGBT politics to normal Americans will invite a disproportionately powerful reaction. Power begs to be balanced.