Walkerton pizzeria once at center of national controversy has now closed

[trotsky]

https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/business/walkerton-pizzeria-once-at-center-of-national-controversy-has-now/article_83b23989-40ef-554f-b4ab-d4657cf0a150.html

Memories Pizza, the shop that became embroiled in the national debate over religious and civil rights and touched off a national media firestorm in 2015, has closed.

A sign in the front window of the pizza shop says it was shuttered last month.

Owners Kevin and Crystal O’Connor were the focus of intense criticism and media attention in April 2015 after they told an ABC 57 reporter that they wouldn’t cater a gay wedding because of their religious beliefs, although they added that they would not deny service to any customer in the restaurant.

Indiana at the time was already in the national spotlight for its controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The pizza shop owners’ comments soon went viral, and media outlets such as the Washington Post, CNN and Fox News descended on Walkerton, using Memories Pizza as a focal point for the controversy over Indiana’s law. Supporters of the law said it would protect the religious rights of business owners while critics said it would be used to discriminate against gay people and others.

[MineralMan]

1. Also from your link:

The attention, protests and death threats led the store to close for eight days, but the owners subsequently received a flood of donations — more than $800,000 — after Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze network backed the O’Connors and set up a GoFundMe account to support them.

That's the real reason it closed, I'm pretty sure. That's more money than that dump would make in 20 years of operation. Why make pizza when you have all that cash? Time to retire and move on, I suspect.

[Mariana]

2. We have been told that Christians contribute more to charitable causes

than non-Christians. I guess this is an example of Christian generosity.

[MineralMan]

3. It's certainly an example of something.

That's for sure. But not an example of any good thing, in this case.

[Initech]

4. Sounds like a case of "take the money and run".

What a very Christian thing to do!

[MineralMan]

5. I'm sure the owners of that pizza place see it

as a reward for their bigotry. And so it is, in many ways.

[Initech]

6. Only in this country do we reward assholes for being assholes.

Just ask that guy who we call president.

[Cartoonist]

7. The Christian thing to do

Would have been to stay in business and feed the homeless with that gift from God.

[Mariana]

8. Well, the straight homeless, at any rate.

Wouldn't want them to violate their sincerely held Christian beliefs by feeding any gay homeless people.

It's likely their church got a piece of the action. That lets them off the hook when it comes to what they do with the remainder, right?

[struggle4progress]

9. I'm still trying to imagine what a wedding looks like, when catered by a fundamentalist pizzeria

"What better way to celebrate your Bible-based marriage to your sweetheart from home-school than with our wedding cake special featuring a two-foot tower of twelve inch deep dish pizzas, representing everything we offer and topped with a bride and groom standing on the roof of a pepperoni Noah's ark filled with dinosaurs lovingly crafted from green cheese and surrounded by frolicking anchovy-paste dolphins?"

[Stuart G]

10. When you have seen it all...then..I can imagine....."dinosaurs lovingly crafted from

green cheese and surrounded by frolicking anchovy-paste dolphins.."....outstanding..!!!

that is a new one for me.....I can see the wedding cake now...I like the "deep dish pizza"...but I am not sure of the rest of it......fundamentalism...ain't my kind of pie...
....I like a little of this, and that, and then I listen to another idea...hope to figure it out from listening...Wish I knew more, but this listening deal...ain't bad. long ago, I did learn if I listen enough, I can learn something..beyond my self centered ideas... Well back to that "deep dish pizza" Where should I order from???