The Internet Just Had the Best Response to an Indiana Pizza Restaurant's Bigotry
If you publicize your bigoted views on television, don't be surprised if the mighty force of the Internet soon rains down on you.
Memories Pizza, a small shop in Walkerton, Indiana, is learning this lesson the hard way after a local news station broadcast a segment featuring the store's owners Tuesday night.
"If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no," Crystal O'Connor, whose family owns Memories Pizza, told ABC57. "We are a Christian establishment."
The O'Connor family told the station they wholeheartedly agree with Gov. Mike Pence's signing of the state's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which recently opened the door for businesses to discriminate against any individual who they perceive to run counter to their religious beliefs, and argued the bill is not "targeting gays."
"That lifestyle is something they choose," Crystal's father, Kevin O'Connor, added. "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?"
Once the O'Connor family made their views public, it wasn't long before some choice Yelp reviews for Memories Pizza began to pour in, some from all over the country.
While the bill's proponents argue it will simply protect religious freedom and won't allow for discrimination, Memories Pizza is demonstrating that the bill will in all likelihood have real-life consequences for LGBT individuals. "We definitely agree with the bill," Crystal O'Connor told the news channel.
"We're not discriminating against anyone, that's just our belief and anyone has the right to believe in anything," she added.
"The right to believe in anything" is a sentiment that Yelpers have taken to heart. Besides awarding the pizza parlor's with myriad one-star reviews, mischievous users have also plastered decidedly un-Christian photographs all over the page.
While they have been especially creative, Yelp users aren't the only ones taking their outrage into the open. A number of public figures — from politicians to sports coaches — that have declared a boycott of the state, arguing that until real progress is made, they'll refrain from traveling to Indiana.
It appears to be working. On Wednesday, the Indianapolis Star reported that "Indiana Republican leaders are vetting a deal with key business leaders that grants protection for gay and lesbian residents from the state's controversial 'religious freedom' law."
With any luck, the bigotry of Memories Pizza and the bill's other advocates won't fly for much longer.
