News
Internet Trolls Pizzeria That's Anti Gay Marriage
When Walkerton, Indiana, restaurant Memories Pizza announced it wouldn't cater a same-sex wedding, but will still serve gay customers, people were outraged and simply baffled. The business had been featured in a local news segment in which Memories Pizza's Crystal O'Connor voiced her support for the state's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act. She said that while the restaurant will still serve gay customers who want to come in to the store and eat, it's just same-sex marriages she and the business disagree with. O'Connor told news station ABC 57:
If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no. We are a Christian establishment. We're not discriminating against anyone, that's just our belief and anyone has the right to believe in anything
The Internet responded as it often does, taking to Yelp to leave negative and satirical reviews and photos of the Indiana-based pizzeria. Many reviews highlighted the fact that most people don't pick pizza as their grand wedding meal, as beloved as the food may be. Others just straight-up went the satire route, creating unbelievable stories for the sake of making a point to stand up for the LGBT community. Here's a few of the reviews budding Internet satirists and other commenters left.
Jade S.
Jade S. proclaimed Memories to be the best gay bar in town. Her five-star review reads:
I came here for their monthly lesbian night. Pretty good lighting. Pretty good dance floor but the DJ did play a lot of Ani Difranco. I mean, I love Ani but she's just not dancey enough. The rest of the night was good though and I loved that they have pizza for your drunk 3am munchies! Great drink prices and lots of hot women all over the butch/femme scale. Even got a few numbers. Hey girl, hey. Great and open environment and I really love their gender-neutral bathrooms. All gay people should come to this place all the time!!
Eric K.
Surprisingly, Eric K. decided to take on the pizzeria's challenge to cater his wedding after finding little luck in simply buying a pizza sans nuptials:
I ordered a large sausage pizza - I asked how large the sausage was because I like it very large. They started quoting scripture, threw some water on me from the pop machine and called me a Fig I think. (didn't understand that). I was confused so I took off my sparkly tank top (it got a little caught in my nipple rings) and wiped my face. My glitter sun screen was all over the place.Then I asked if I could please have really bad pizza from a tacky dirty place cater my wedding. I mean I spent so much on the Tom of Finland Naked Leatherman ice sculpture and the Liza Minelli female impersonators on roller skates that I didn't have much of a food budget.They said 'absolutely not' - which sounded like 'absofufely not' because of all their missing teeth and bad dental situation.Does anyone else know of a white trash pizza place to cater my fabulous day? Please let me know.
Timothy K.
Timothy K. had far better luck on the catering front:
We are a very traditional family. So, naturally, at our wedding we served pizza. And what a better place to help us make new memories on our special day than Memories Pizza.The owners were so very helpful. Having checked our marriage certificate to make sure we weren't a gay couple, they immediately offered some very creative ways to celebrate our choice of being heterosexual. And the pizzas shaped like the male member were just that special touch we needed. So clever and fun.But as I said, we are traditional, so we did stop short of the having the figurines on the top of the wedding pizza be doing it doggy style. Nope, we are strictly missionary! At least in public.So I strongly recommend that you not just order the pizzas for your wedding from Memories Pizza, but that you have a personal consultation with the owners so that you can get all the special touches.In fact, they've been so helpful that they've been over to our home many evenings since to make sure that we were fully satisfied with their services. And, of course, for a hands-on check to be sure that we aren't choosing to do anything non-heterosexual.
Joe C.
There are a few reviews pretending to support the business and applauding "religious freedom" in the face of being on the wrong side of history and patently against equality, which Joe C. sums up by equating the opinion to racism:
Honestly, why can't those colored folks go to other lunch counters instead of criticizing us God-fearing people who are standing up for our beliefs? Genesis is clear, God created the races, separated them by continents and confounded them by language. Clearly it's not discrimination! It's just a religious belief! Oh wait, wrong century. It's the gays now. It's the gays we're after. Never mind!
As of this writing, Memories Pizza's Yelp page has risen from a handful of reviews to more than 1,800 penned. It currently cumulatively has just one and a half stars. As Memories may choose not to cater gay weddings under the current Indiana law, so, too, can the world choose not to dine there.
