There’s one Indiana pizza company that’s pleased as punch with the state’s new RFRA, and is already making firm plans to not serve gays who go in there and ask for pizzas for their wedding.
WALKERTON, Ind. –A small-town pizza shop is saying they agree with Governor Pence and the signing of the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The O’Connor family, who owns Memories Pizza, says they have a right to believe in their religion and protect those ideals.
“If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no,” says Crystal O’Connor of Memories Pizza.
Hmmmm. You know what? I bet the marryin’ gays of Walkerton, Indiana, wouldn’t want Memories Pizza for their gay gay wedding, because something tells me it might not be the best pizza you ever had. I don’t think I would look to the O’Connor family for pizza if I lived in Walkerton, Indiana.
It’s a small-town business, with small-town ideals.
“We are a Christian establishment,” says O’Connor.
The O’Connor family prides themselves in owning a business that reflects their religious beliefs.
“We’re not discriminating against anyone, that’s just our belief and anyone has the right to believe in anything,” says O’Connor.
To believe in anything, yes, but to act on those beliefs, it depends. It depends less in Indiana (and much of the US) than it should, but it does still depend.
When ABC 57 asked O’Connor about the negative backlash the bill has been getting for being a discriminatory piece of legislation, she says that’s simply not true.
“I do not think it’s targeting gays. I don’t think it’s discrimination,” says O’Connor. “It’s supposed to help people that have a religious belief.”
O’Connor says because she’s a Christian, she and her family don’t support a gay marriage and that is their right.
Yes – again, not supporting something is their right, but acting on that non-support may not be. It depends. It is discrimination to refuse to serve people for the reason given.
Kevin O’Connor, Crystal’s father, says he believes the negative backlash the bill and its supporters are getting isn’t fair.
“That lifestyle is something they choose. I choose to be heterosexual. They choose to be homosexual. Why should I be beat over the head to go along with something they choose?” says Kevin O’Connor.
I really doubt that I would like their pizza.
uh…if Daddy’s admitting that he “CHOOSES to be heterosexual”, well, that tells us a lot about Daddy’s true sexual orientation, doesn’t it?
Their website has been hacked and people are arguing about the issue through yelp reviews. There are, of course, equating criticism with suppression of free speech
The part that puzzles me about these pinheads is how they manage to think that belief rights stop with them. What if my belief requires me to smash up their pizza shop? According to their lights I have to act on that because that’s what I believe.
Why has it become so hard to understand that if belief trumps all other rights, then nobody has any rights?
@quixote #3:
I’m betting on a lifetime of unchecked privilege.
I’ve been to a bunch of weddings, and not ONE has featured pizza O_O
@Blanche, #5:
Maybe this helps:
http://www.shakesville.com/2015/04/pizza-and-progressives.html
Quote from linked article:
To add to my previous comment, also from the linked article:
Wryly amused that in this thread the phrase
Was immediately followed, without any apparent irony, by the phrase
Option 1: the average cost of a UK wedding £21k
Option 2: 10% deposit on a nice 2 bed flat/house outside of London + cost of a UK family sized pizza £21K
I’ve been lucky enough to have found 2 women daft enough to agree to marry me in my 45 years (although we called the second one off) but neither was so daft they would have chosen option 1.
Information I gained from a comment by Tony! The Queer Shoop on Pharyngula:
[$50,123 of $45k as I post this]
I read on another news source (don’t remember) someone purchased the domain name ‘memoriespizza.com’. The message is short and sweet. /snark/
Erik
I think it’s time for someone in Indiana (and perhaps elsewhere) to publish a directory to the business that do and do not discriminate. It would be like what Victor H. Green created for African-American motorists.
Has anyone heard of such a thing being developed?
What is the best way to ask a business about its discrimination policies?
Put a “Christians not served here” sign in the window & watch the circling of the circus wagons.
Maybe it’s a lifetime of privilege. But not, generally, in the way I understand the phrase. An awful lot of the belief-über-alles people come from the poorer half of their societies, not the richer. Privilege maybe more in the sense that they know they’re totally right and nobody else is, but that’s dunderheadedness more than privilege, isn’t it? As well as being, in a lot of ways, the human condition.
I think John Horstman meant specifically religious privilege, which can and does go hand in hand with radical lack of privilege in categories like class, money, status, race, gender. The very word “belief” has a halo of privilege around it. None of this is random, of course – belief-privilege distracts people from the other kinds, and consoles them for their lack of the other kinds.
on April 1, 2015 at 8:22 pm Blanche Quizno @5 said
>I’ve been to a bunch of weddings, and not ONE has featured pizza
Daughter’s wedding served pizza as kid’s menu. High toned place served pesto pizza. Kids all but said: “Green pizza. Yuck. Why can’t we have red pizza like god intended?” Any adult who wanted tasty green pizza had plenty. It was good.
oh good lord. Surprise, a Christian actually believes their book.
Can we live in a diverse country without driving each other out of business.
Gays, oppressed? Like Tim Cook, CEO of the richest company in the history of mankind. A righteous man of conscience, you see, who does business with China (Hooliganism was decriminalized in 1997, so don’t say nothing changes in China).
But we’ve got the scalp of a pizza proprietor. The mob is satiated, for the moment.
We’ve got his scalp and he has $130,000.
And all people who believe in tolerance and diversity ought to pony up 25$
The way to live in a diverse country is by keeping beliefs out of the way businesses serve the public.
Yes, LGBT people as a group are oppressed, even though some LGBT individuals are economically successful. Just like some individual Jews were very successful while the majority were facing discrimination in many different ways in many aspects of life (varying by locale). (I’m of Jewish descent and upbringing, BTW). The LGBT people who can’t marry the partner of their choice or who deal with discrimination by business owners, or those who fear losing their jobs, friends or family if their orientation or gender identity were to become known are being oppressed, and this oppression is not alleviated by the success of other individual LGBT people.
To md @19: Tolerance does not include tolerance of bigotry.
md:
Here’s the problem with what you’re saying, besides False Equivalence/Balance and Both-Sides-Do-It-ism. Supporters of equality want businesses open to the public to treat all customers equally. Bigots want to be able to discriminate against various classes of people because of their Beliefs. Your call for “tolerance” means… letting the bigots get everything they want, and supporters of equality get nothing. Sure, that seems fair! Gosh, we’re such meanie heads for demanding businesses open to the public obey the central tenant of the Civil Rights Act of 1964!
Oh, and spare us the crap about how gays aren’t oppressed because of one (or several) successful examples. “Teh gays” are at much higher risk of bullying, child abuse, and suicide; in many states it is legal for companies to fire employees for being gay. And it’s only in the last couple of years that it has been legal for gay Americans to marry in a majority of this country. Get off your smug high horse, stop throwing out red herrings, and face the facts.
themann1086:
if a lesbian kale farmer/social justice warrior doesn’t want to cater an Ayn Rand conference because of her beliefs, she ought to be able to not participate.
If a kosher deli in Dearborn Michigan sees someone put down their “Death to Israel” placard in the local peace parade and walk into their store, and they don’t want to sell the peacenik any sourkraut, they ought to be able to not participate.
If a homosexual softball league wants to stay homosexual and not pitch softballs to bisexuals, they ought to be able to not participate.
We either have the freedom of association, or we do not.
Of course he did. Just like I choose to not be a peregrine falcon. I could be a damn good one if I wanted to, you know. I just decided it wasn’t the best career move for me.
md, #23
Nothing wrong with the first two cases. Ayn Rand conference is something people actively do, not something they are by nature. Same with the Israel example.
Why did you choose those two examples? Why didn’t you choose “if a kale farmer doesn’t want to cater a black person’s conference” or “a deli owner doesn’t want to sell to Chinese people? How do those two examples sound to you? Same as your first two?
md @23: We do not. If the only place you can exercise your civil rights is on government property, the Post Office for instance, or the DMV, you might as well not have civil rights. If you are a *business* serving the public, then civil rights requires you to serve all the public equally. Otherwise, you’re right back to water fountains for colored people and gender-segregated seating at university lectures.
That has nothing to do with voluntary softball leagues or the right to associate. A pizza parlor is not a church or a parliament.
md, #23
If an ice cream shop doesn’t want to cater to a child of [insert your skin color] skin, they ought to be able to politely explain to the child why they’re selling ice cream to the child’s friends but not to the child.
That’s the proper analogy. Your Ayn Rand and deli analogies are wrong.
Take your anti-gay bigotry elsewhere.
Conferences are not businesses open to the public, so your first example is a red herring. Niche softball leagues are not businesses open to the public, so again, red herring.
It’s your 2nd example that is closest here and I have a thought experiment for you. Would a neo nazi deli store owner have the right to withold service from a Jewish customer? The answer is no, no they do not. And the reverse is also true*: any business open to the public is bound by non discrimination laws.
*provided said customer doesn’t start any problems, in which case they can be asked to leave
ETA before posting: ok, I re-read your conference “example” and I misunderstood initially, so let me reply to that one: she may ask her employer for time off or to not cater that particular job, but no I don’t think she has the “right” to not provide service to people based on her “beliefs”.
If you want to provide a service to just your friends and family, that is of course your right, and really none of anyone else’s business. And if you want to not make pizza for crazy uncle Chad who now calls himself Loretta, well, if you think that ain’t natural, that’s your call.
But when you open as a business, and start making (or potentially making) actual profits, then it is absolutely proper that the government gets involved. It’s proper they make sure you pay your taxes, that your employees’ health and safety is properly protected, and that your customers’ rights – their consumer rights as well as their human rights – are equally respected.
Which means no, your pizza store doesn’t have the right to operate ovens that could give someone an electric shock. No, you don’t get to pay someone a dollar a week. No, you don’t get to get away with putting dead mice in the pizza dough and you don’t get to put up signs saying “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish”.
If you don’t like these limitations on your business, you’re free to, y’know, not run a business. Or, it seems, go run a business in some backward hole.
Not necessarily true.
But look closely, I wrote the word ‘ought’ in all those examples, not that I believed they were precisely analogous to this or currently legal. The point is the country would be an easier and more pleasant place to live in if its national politics were not so bent on forcing everyone to conform and cranking up the internet eye of Sauron on those who do not. A news organization had to find these people and bait them into reciting their religious beliefs on camera, no one would know about them otherwise because there had been no complaints. They served homosexuals in their restaurant and had never been asked to cater a wedding. The whole thing is hypothetical.
I’d propose a ‘don’t ask Christians about their beliefs and they don’t tell you about them’ compromise but I suspect it won’t suit anyone.
Into the closet, Christians, git git!
The fundraiser is currently at $232,101.
[refreshes]
Make that $233,281.
$234,206.
It’s going up at $1000 a minute. Literally.
md,
C’mon, really? War on Christianity?
You’re not even trying to sound like you’re not a bigoted homophobe anymore.
Nope. Nice try, but too easy to catch. You substituted “forcing everyone to conform” for “requiring businesses to not discriminate based on sexual orientation.
Also, based on your support of the Christians being bigoted asshats, you also agree with this;
So you would prefer the “negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace that is the presence of justice”, as MLK famously wrote?
And “pleasant”? Really? A little on those nose, don’t you think?
Sorry to double post, but I really wanted to share this bit from MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
The fundraiser has slowed down now. $271,357.
Why did these ‘activists’ provoke this? This is very bad PR for gays. The O’Connors are now the victims and the gays the bullies and aggressors.
A news organization had to find these people and bait them into reciting their religious beliefs on camera, no one would know about them otherwise because there had been no complaints. They served homosexuals in their restaurant and had never been asked to cater a wedding. The whole thing is hypothetical.
Yeah exactly. I also think the death threats and bomb threats against the O’Connors do little to help the case of gays.
A while back in Toronto a lesbian activist went into an all male Muslim barber shop, demanded a haircut, but was refused. The case generated a lot of publicity…at first. Apparently she soon had a change of heart and the case of homophobia was quietly resloved.
Off the record.
Our of court.
Out of sight.
$772,535
If they were RealChristians™, they’d give it all to the poor.