dust1n
Zindīq
So would it be alright if I denied making pizzas for Jehovah's Witnesses?
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This Pizza Parlor Is Indiana's First Business to Deny Service to LGBT Customers
- Thread starter Nada
- Start date
So would it be alright if I denied making pizzas for Jehovah's Witnesses?
The same thing that happened to the rights of those who believe race mixing is ungodly and communist.
Tom
I do think the backlash against them is ridiculous and vicious. They're acting like a lynch mob.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
We are learning that all people are regular, normal people, and everyone, regardless of what label you may want to apply to them, is deserving of being treated with decency and respect and they shouldn't have to be expected to deal with hatred. Do we cry over the "rights" of those who think they shouldn't have to cater to non-white people? Also, where is it that discrimination is a granted right? Why should it even be a right? Why on earth does anyone even think it's a "right" that people should have?
You can still disagree all you want. But we should not be denied services just because someone else can't get along.
And, of course, where did Jesus ever say he was ok with discrimination? Last I knew he was all about peace, acceptance, and loving your neighbor and enemy as yourself.
Where? I find it to be encouraging that there are enough people who are on our side and are concerned about our rights, and that we should be treated like normal people in society.
There's ways to demonstrate that instead of acting like a hateful lunatic yourself. MLK demonstrated that very well.
Woodrow LI
IB Ambassador
The backlash seems to be getting pretty heated
(Newser) – The owners of the pizzeria in Walkerton, Ind., that told a local TV station they would refuse to cater a gay wedding has seen their world turn upside down since Tuesday night. In an interview with TheBlaze TV, Crystal O'Connor says Memories Pizza has been closed since the comments she and her father made in support of the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act attracted national attention. "I don't know if we will re-open, or if we can, if it's safe to re-open," she notes. As for what the family is doing in the meantime: "We're in hiding, basically ... staying in the house." O'Connor adds that she's been suspended from another job she has "until this clears up," so she has no income coming in. She's not the only one experiencing job issues: ABC57 reports that a golf coach at Concord High School in Elkhart has been suspended after she allegedly tweeted under the since-deleted account @dooley_11
Indiana Pizzeria Owners Are 'in Hiding, Basically'
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
True. But I don't see this angry lynch mob, except for a few things online.
In a state where people are known for getting worked up and upset if you're an atheist, I just do not see them being in any danger. I would be very surprised if more than a few people in the area are seriously considering harming them. We still have a very real problem of homosexuals being assaulted. The largest Klan rally was held here, and Klan sentiments are still alive.
Honestly, I hope it changes their attitude. I can't tell you how many times I've read online comments that say transgender people should be beaten, raped, killed, and so on.
They go into hiding over online comments, while the GLBT community is out in the open and regularly receives real-life threats.
If you play with fire, you will be burned.
I don't know if it's true. But according to a link Bible Student posted the O'Connors raised $40,000 in six hours on GoFundMe.
I should have such problems.
Tom
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
The link from Woodrow puts the number at $55,000, a donation for standing for their religious beliefs.
I need to "limit service" to some group at my little soleproprieter shop.
How about I refuse to sell high end picture frames to somebody. Could I close up for a few days and get people to just send me money?
Tom
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
They get scared by online comments, and they get a ton of cash in donations. And of course it's probably only a minority of people posting such things, and most people I am willing to wager wish no harm upon them or their business.
Homosexuals are attacked in various ways, and the police dismiss it. Transgender people are murdered, and nobody cares enough to get the case solved. We ask for rights, and we are told we should just go back in the closet, we are sinners going to hell, that we need to be "fixed," etc.
I also doubt it was the social backlash that made the state "fix" the bill. I am certain it was all the money the state was looking to loose. Indiana is a huge basketball state, and if the NCAA pulls out, there goes a ton of cash. If we loose Gen Con, there goes a lot of money. At least three cities have stopped funding non-essential travel to the state. Some business were looking at cancelling plans to expand to the state. It would have been too costly for the state to not address the complaints.
How do you think their rights are being violated?
Are you just talking about threats of violence? If so, then I agree this is wrong (though I have no reason to trust that "newser.com" is reporting this accurately).
If you're talking about people merely choosing not to do business with companies that declare their bigotry, I see nothing wrong with this at all.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
By "lifestyle" I assume you mean what they do in the bedroom? That's really a private matter, so I don't see a need to agree or disagree with it.
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
Precisely.
I mean, no one's ever refused me service for all the really kinky stuff my old lady and I get into...
Why is that? Is it just assumed that because I'm heterosexual that the things I do behind closed doors are somehow more wholesome?
Yes. Yes it is... And they have absolutely no idea what kind of stuff is out there or what kind of person I am.
If I were to get married, and want pizza at my reception for some ungodly reason, they wouldn't bat an eye and simply assume that I was a pure and godly man of faith or whatever, just because I put on the charade that is expected of modern weddings...
The folly of what these people are doing is much deeper than just bigotry, and they're absolutely blind to it.
I've received writings on my studio windows with threatening messages because I regularly employ blacks. A local Aryan Nation chapter meets in the same town we do business.
For months, I received rape threats and death threats, and threats from people who share they know where my husband works, what he does in his spare time, where the kids go to school, and what these people would do to them while they would make me watch. All from my writings on equality for women.
File police reports, have the evidence on disc, written records, save as much evidence as you can, and then continue with business.
For those of us who stand for something that is unpopular, this does happen. It is rattling and scary and unsettling and ones eyes are opened to how vicious people can be.
My best advice to them is that they will never see the dust settle, so open the business up, and decide whether or not they wish to stand for their beliefs, to take measures for evidence gathering so in case something does happen, a paper trail is left for perpetrators the possibility of justice.
I agree, however, with those who say they wish they had their problems. No way in **** would someone like me raise $50,000 in six hours or so if I went into hiding. Well, unless I had a really good PR person.
This reminds me of the gang of women in India who wear pink saris who carry out vigilante justice against men who are known rapists and never brought to justice by the system. The men there harass, discriminate, beat, rape, and kill women with impunity. The courts and law enforcement do nothing. So a group of women decided to take matters into their own hands, and beat men who are pointed out as perpetrators with baseball bats.
They're brutal and savage. And many men are terrified of them.
This...I think....is what happens when justice is not for all in a state. When people are supported by the state to openly and proudly and smugly discriminate or commit violence against an entire demographic, at a certain point people have been known to group for violent revolt.
We shouldn't let it get to that point in the first place. Give bigotry an inch in legislation and/or the justice system, and it takes 1000 miles in it's application.
The pizza parlor is cavalier in it's right to openly discriminate against queers. It couldn't do that without the support of the state and a culture that sleeps well at night categorizing queers as sub-human.
Case in point: Stonewall Riots.
For months, I received rape threats and death threats, and threats from people who share they know where my husband works, what he does in his spare time, where the kids go to school, and what these people would do to them while they would make me watch. All from my writings on equality for women.
File police reports, have the evidence on disc, written records, save as much evidence as you can, and then continue with business.
For those of us who stand for something that is unpopular, this does happen. It is rattling and scary and unsettling and ones eyes are opened to how vicious people can be.
My best advice to them is that they will never see the dust settle, so open the business up, and decide whether or not they wish to stand for their beliefs, to take measures for evidence gathering so in case something does happen, a paper trail is left for perpetrators the possibility of justice.
I agree, however, with those who say they wish they had their problems. No way in **** would someone like me raise $50,000 in six hours or so if I went into hiding. Well, unless I had a really good PR person.
This reminds me of the gang of women in India who wear pink saris who carry out vigilante justice against men who are known rapists and never brought to justice by the system. The men there harass, discriminate, beat, rape, and kill women with impunity. The courts and law enforcement do nothing. So a group of women decided to take matters into their own hands, and beat men who are pointed out as perpetrators with baseball bats.
They're brutal and savage. And many men are terrified of them.
This...I think....is what happens when justice is not for all in a state. When people are supported by the state to openly and proudly and smugly discriminate or commit violence against an entire demographic, at a certain point people have been known to group for violent revolt.
We shouldn't let it get to that point in the first place. Give bigotry an inch in legislation and/or the justice system, and it takes 1000 miles in it's application.
The pizza parlor is cavalier in it's right to openly discriminate against queers. It couldn't do that without the support of the state and a culture that sleeps well at night categorizing queers as sub-human.
Case in point: Stonewall Riots.
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starlite
Texasgirl
Yes...if that is your choice
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Dress code is not a valid comparison because people have a choice about the way they dress. People don't have a choice about their gender, race or sexual orientation.
Thana
Lady
A few quibbles:
If a business doesn't want to serve me because they don't like short women (as I am one), it isn't as if I can do much about that. It's discriminatory.
If a business doesn't want to serve me because one of my flip flops broke in the parking lot, and I walked in barefoot. That isn't discriminatory. I can hop back into the car, go home, find another pair of shoes to wear, and come back.
And last but not least...this business is in a socially conservative community that sleeps well at night thinking queers are sub-human second class citizens according to their religious beliefs. They're also backed by the state of Indiana that says it's okay to deny anything they want to queers because of these religious beliefs. Where should a LGBTQ person go, then, if it's far more likely that this pizzeria is not the only business that holds these beliefs?
I guess it's more efficient and easy for a community to just go on being hateful toward LGBTQ people, and coerce them to either leave town completely or to stay in the closet for their own sensibilities. Easier for them, sure, but far more likely to end in violence for the few people who are LGBTQ either by suicide or homicide if they stay.
I'd rather not see de-humanization and bigotry acceptable in any established government. The results tend to be in brutality toward those who are deemed second-class citizens.