There's no accounting for taste. A big controversy has exploded in South Carolina, and it involves barbecue sauce. But not just any barbecue sauce -- this one is not the typical reddish brown; in fact, it lacks tomatoes altogether.


Rather, it is a gooey yellow mustard-based glaze and South Carolina natives rarely eat barbecued anything without it. The name of this popular commodity is Maurice's All Natural Gourmet Bled BBQ Sauce.


But the base of the sauce is not its only interesting attribute; its owner has recently caused quite a stir as well.


Maurice Bessinger is the founder and owner of the hugely popular chain, Maurice's Piggy Park, which serves what some people call the best barbecue in the state. But his pig is not his only claim to fame; Mr. Bessinger was an outspoken opponent of integration in the 50's and 60's. He even ran for governor of South Carolina on a platform of segregation, and he was longtime head of the National Association for the Preservation of White People (I guess the spotted owl club was full). Maurice's Piggy Park is known for keeping its dining room segregated long after most other restaurants had integrated theirs, leading the Supreme Court to force him to comply with the law.


But Bessinger says that he's changed. He claims that ever since he became a born-again Christian, he has given up his belief in racial superiority. Is he really a new man? All signs seem to point to no.


If you go to the Maurice's Piggy Park website, you w ill immediately be confronted with Confederate flag images, a Dixie tune, and a long statement written by Maurice himself, urging people to fight to restore state sovereignty, calling for the placement of state flags on all public property, accusing the Supreme Court of "radically reinterpret[ing]" the constitution, and accusing "left-wing one-worlders" of trying to carry out their "plan of destroying our constitutional republic." After South Carolina recently removed its Confederate flag from the Capitol dome, Mr. Bessinger lowered the American flag over his Piggy Park headquarter office and replaced it with state and Confederate battle flags. And perhaps most disturbing, he has set up a religious mission adjacent to his flagship restaurant that distributes literature defending the practice of slavery.


It was these expressions of racism that have caused six major retailers in the Southeast, including Wal-Mart, to take Maurice's BBQ Sauce and frozen foods off their shelves.


Bessinger has complained that this move is a thwarting of freedom of speech, and has accused the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce of organizing a politically correct conspiracy against him. He says that the stores that have removed his products "are just yielding to outside pressure from people who want to destroy the Constitution and remake America to fit their globalism strategy."


What Bessinger ignores is the fact that restaurant managers' and food producers' political views are not regularly taken into consideration by distributors or consumers. Then again, politics are rarely served up as a side order.


Companies have the right to decide exactly what they put on their shelves, and the offense these six take at Bessinger's outspoken racism is as good a reason as any. The product's presence may offend not only customers, but also employees and owners of the companies themselves. And while the carrying of a product certainly does not mean that a store agrees with the beliefs of that product's maker -- does Fontana's agree with Nike's manufacturing methods? -- carrying that product does mean profit for the maker. It also means profit for the store, as Bessinger is quick to point out, which only makes Wal-Mart and the five other retailers all the more noble for adopting this stance.


Despite his despicable attitudes, Maurice Bessinger does have some supporters -- most notably Patrick J. Buchanan. In fact, the presidential candidate's state campaign headquarters are located in the main Piggy Park building, which continues to serve many customers its yellow -- not red -- glazed pulled pork.


I guess we know Pat Buchanan's color preference.

Archived article by Danielle Stein