Forgive Anti-Gay Memories Pizza, For They Know Not What They Do

The intense, well-deserved flap over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act has produced, as these stories often do, a perfectly satisfying subplot involving Walkerton, Ind.-based eatery Memories Pizza, whose owners stepped up to defend their own right not to ever cater a gay wedding. It’s a great story, because it allows supporters of gay marriage to make vigorous sport of an easy, seemingly deserving target, while the inevitable death threats (from parties unknown) make them the perfect martyr for anti-gay conservatives.

In the former category, Yelp users have completely tanked the restaurant’s average score, and someone else bought the domain name “MemoriesPizza.com,” and turned it into a shrine to dick pizzas (they have since replaced that with a text-only splash page). In the latter, a GoFundMe campaign that has raised over $56,000.00 (allegedly) for the owners.

At a glance, it’s tempting to decide that these folks deserve the non-criminal abuse they’re getting, because after all, they’re the ones who decided to stick their stupid bigoted noses into this issue. That attitude is reinforced by the reporting on this story, which has the eatery “declaring” that it is the “first business to publicly deny same-sex service,” because while they happily serve gay customers, co-owner Crystal O’Connor says, “If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no.”

This is orders of magnitude more stupid than it is hateful, because of the narrow subset of people who might ever have their weddings catered by a pizzeria, and the even narrower subset of gay people who might ever want to serve pizza at their weddings, none of them are holding out for the taste sensation that is the Indiana Slice. Even if that mythical pepperoni-stain-loving gay couple existed, they cold easily acquire the pizza by just not telling the O’Connors it’s for a wedding. They never said they wouldn’t cater an orgy, so tell them that’s what it’s for.

But most importantly, it’s stupid because…READ MORE

By: Tommy Christopher

Tommy Christopher is The Daily Banter's White House Correspondent and Political Analyst. He's been a political reporter and liberal commentator since 2007, and has covered the White House since the beginning of the Obama administration, first for PoliticsDaily, and then for Mediaite. Christopher is a frequent guest on a variety of television, radio, and online programs, and was the villain in the documentaries The Audacity of Democracy and Hating Breitbart. He's also That Guy Who Live-Tweeted His Own Heart Attack, and the only person to have ever received public apologies from both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.