April 6, 2015
Top News Today
Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana was one of the first businesses to announce they would take advantage of the new law to refuse service to gays and lesbians on the grounds of religion. “If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no,” said Crystal O’Connor, one of the owners of Memories Pizza.
Their bold stance opened the flood gates to an intense national debate on the subject of religion and discrimination.
“STAY AWAY from this place,” an anonymous commenter wrote on Yelp. “DISCRIMINATION should not be tolerated in America.”
“Cue the Gay Mafia,” wrote another Yelp commenter. “The fact is, this business has the RIGHT not to provide any services to a ‘wedding’ event for gay or lesbian couples, something that goes against their religious beliefs.”
“We’re not discriminating against anyone,” O’Connor said. “That’s just our belief, and anyone has the right to believe in anything.”
The theory that religious beliefs provide carte blanche to turn away gay and lesbian customers prompted a sea of hate mail and death threats against the pizza owners, causing them to shut down for several days. In a show of solidarity, a group of religious zealots started an online GoFundMe page called “Support Memories Pizza” and raised more than $50,000 on behalf of the pizza restaurant from 1,300 donors in just 11 hours. Now, donations for the “Christian” pizzeria are more than $800,000.
Not surprisingly, Memories Pizza is not the only business under the misconception that religion permits discrimination.
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Last September, Krista and Jami Contreras of Detroit took their newborn daughter to see Dr. Vesna Roi for a prenatal checkup. However, when they arrived, a different doctor stopped them at the door to inform them that after praying on it, Dr. Roi had decided to refuse to treat the 6-day-old baby girl. The reason for the refusal of service? Her mothers are lesbians.
Why would Memories Pizza, Dr. Roi and others willingly turn away customers on the premise of having deep religious convictions? Well, denying service to someone solely because of their sexuality is not about religion — it’s about punishment.
Like the commercial sign that reads “No Shoes, No Shirt, NO SERVICE,” denial of service has traditionally been used as punishment to convince non-compliers to change their behavior. This situation is no different.
Dr. Roi denied service to an innocent infant, not because the baby herself is a lesbian, but because her parents are. The denial of service was meant to “punish” the parents into changing their deviant ways before ever being admitted inside her medical practice. To Dr. Roi, denial of service = punishment, which brings about CHANGE.
The case of Memories Pizza was almost identical. Instead of taking into account the hundreds of gay customers they’d served at dozens of weddings, birthday parties and other events over the years (without first questioning customers about their sexuality), they too meant to “punish” gay customers into changing their deviant ways before ever being served by their establishment. To Memories Pizzza, denial of service = punishment, which brings about CHANGE.
So, do not be fooled. This was never about religion. Instead, this one-sided lesson in morality was about using religion to punish others into compliance. It was textbook discrimination. The rouse that religion makes it OK to discriminate is just that — a rouse. No matter how you spin it, discrimination is still discrimination. There’s simply no justifying it.
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