TheBlaze Raises $140k For Indiana Pizza Shop Refusing To Cater Gay Weddings

[DonViejo]

Source: TPM

-snip-

Owner Kevin O'Connor later told Fox News that the restaurant was also flooded with so many calls for fake pizza orders that he had to close up shop. He said he wasn't sure when or whether he'd reopen.

Dana Loesch, a host on Glenn Beck's TheBlaze TV network, spoke earlier Wednesday with co-owner Crystal O'Connor. Loesch asked O'Connor how the backlash to the family's comments about the law had financially impacted them. "I have absolutely no income coming in at all" without the pizzeria, " target="_blank">O'Connor told Loesch.

Loesch then told O'Connor that her crew had set up a fundraiser for the pizzeria on the crowd-funding website GoFundMe. "You've done nothing wrong here," Loesch told O'Connor.

The fundraiser had netted almost $140,000 from more than 4,800 donors as of Thursday early afternoon. The page's organizers had originally set a fundraising goal of $25,000 but increased that figure after the campaign took off.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/memories-pizza-indiana-crowdfunding-campaign

[Historic NY]

1. Some how I think this was all a scam in the first place..

newly opened business not doing well.......its not a first either

[yeoman6987]

7. Nice scam if true

The Go Fund Me support are being used a lot for liberals and conservatives alike. I find them interesting overall. This whole story is just strange. If it was a caterer or bake shop ok but a pizzeria that probably never did a wedding period? It does smell of scam but they will win in the end I guess. Some in our country need to get with 2015. Gay marriage is hear to stay rightfully so. Of corse I was not one who complained about Elton John singing at Rush Limbaugh's wedding either. He took a lot of complaints over that but not like the pizza place. It will be nice when everyone doesn't even blink when they get an invitation to a gay wedding.

[PoliticAverse]

36. It's more a TV reporter creating a good controversary for a story, see:

http://now.snopes.com/2015/04/01/memories-pizza/

[kairos12]

12. They are grifters and the rubes sending money fell for it.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Now "$210,122 of $200k" n/t

[Gore1FL]

3. They gave their hard-earned money to someone well-off enough to own a business.

They sure showed us.

[R.A. Ganoush]

22. How well off...

Do you really think someone is to open up a pizzeria in a town of 2,000?

Aside from corporate chain pizzerias (using the term loosely), I haven't noticed any small town pizza robber-barons lately...

With that being said, there is something odd about publicizing their stance the way they did. I can't say that I've ever been to Indiana, but I doubt there's a large demand for pizza-themed weddings. It's almost as if this was the result they were hoping for. Gain publicity, cover debt and operating expenses and wait til the 15 minutes runs out.

[notadmblnd]

25. I would think it would cost about 80k to open up a pizza place

I know it costs at least that to open a coffee shop.

[R.A. Ganoush]

26. It isn't cheap, I'm sure of that. I was thinking between 75 & 100k

If I'm "well-off" and have 75k just sitting around, I don't think "pizzeria!" is my first choice of investments, especially if I'm the one who's going to be parking my arse in front of a row of ovens for 10 hours a day.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Fools and their money are soon parted. First to their churches and preachers'

airplanes and then for Memory Pizza.

[jeepers]

5. what diff does it make

how these folks are taken out of business. Bought out or boycotted they and their bigotry need no longer be part of mainstreet America.

[Mr.Bill]

6. And while the Republicans

are scurrying around trying to prevent pizza at gay weddings, our President reaches an historic deal to prevent more Nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

They've got their priorities, Obama has his, I guess.

[slumcamper]

9. Well said, Bill! They become smaller and smaller with every passing day.

[slumcamper]

8. The scope and depth of hatred of self-righteous hypocrisy is on full display.

In full-blown moral defeat and driven beyond the brink of insanity, they resort to tossing their money to charlatans and haters in the misguided hope that their coins will change history's surging tide of equality. What a ridiculous spectacle offered by these fools!

Please--continue making complete asses of yourselves--and be swept away into the darkness of oblivion as the light of a new and better day dawns.

[herding cats]

10. Hey, it's their money to do with as the see fit.

I'm fine with the fools who follow GB being fleeced by the fools who wanted legalized discrimination.

It's no skin off my nose if some of those who donated have to eat mac and cheese three times a day for the next month.

[dbackjon]

11. Now if Planned Parenthood would just come out in support of the law

Maybe issue a statement refusing to help a lesbian couple

[George II]

13. I still want to know who is going to have a pizza joint cater their wedding. What's next....

....a Chuckie Cheese catered wedding?

What are the terms and conditions of that website, do the people who set up fundraisers have to certify that there is a bona fide need to raise money? What if I want to buy a racehorse, can I set up a fundraiser on that site?

I guess if Pat Robertson can become a billionaire by scamming "the flock" and selling cheap religious trinkets, there's no limit to what can be done.

Are those donations tax deductible, by both the donors and the pizza joint?

[PoliticAverse]

14. This place doesn't even do catering apparently. And no not tax deductible. n/t

[George II]

29. If they don't do catering why did they go "out on a limb" by saying they wouldn't...

...serve at a gay wedding?

That's like me announcing to the world that if asked, I'd turn down a free trip to Mars.

As for the taxes, I hope they get so much money that it drives them into poverty trying to pay the taxes.

[PoliticAverse]

33. A reporter came around and apparently specifically asked them the wedding question

For more see: http://now.snopes.com/2015/04/01/memories-pizza/

[appalachiablue]

41. I wonder if it was arranged, just my instinct. Very strange-

[PoliticAverse]

42. I doubt it. This just seems to be one of those things that took on a life of it's own. n/t

[Botany]

15. The shop doesn't have a catering operation but I have no doubt that ....

.... "good Christians" will make it a point to visit Walkerton, IN
and buy some pizza from that shop to show their "faith."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/St._Joseph_County_Indiana_Incorporated_and_Unincorporated_areas_Walkerton_Highlighted.svg

BTW there is a Walkerton, Ontario.

[louis-t]

18. Maybe not wedding, but bachelor/bachelorette parties..

etc.

[frylock]

16. grifters gunna grift

[louis-t]

17. And, like the bakery, fools and their money having parted..

the pizza place will eventually close anyway. See, crazy fundies will fund racist homophobes and not see it as welfare.

[AngryAmish]

19. Why don't we raise money for the couple they refused to cater for?

[Shadowflash]

20. That's why it seems like a scam

There WAS no couple. They just said that they wouldn't do it if asked. How many weddings have pizza catered? And, of them, how many same sex weddings? They volunteered the information to a situation that would never occur.

[jmowreader]

21. Man, you would not believe how far off you are

No one asked them to deliver pizza to a gay wedding. Rather, the Pence Act was signed and this pizza joint, out of the blue, claimed they would never cater a gay wedding.

[AngryAmish]

24. Like they issued a press release?

Why?

[jmowreader]

27. Absolutely no idea, sorry

[PoliticAverse]

35. Apparently a TV reporter came around and asked them a question about a hypothetical gay wedding.

Her report aired and the rest is history, see: http://now.snopes.com/2015/04/01/memories-pizza/

[George II]

30. But I'm sure they would have NO problem doing a redneck wedding

[jmowreader]

31. Between a man who's committed adultery 7x and a woman divorced 4x

[PoliticAverse]

34. They didn't refuse to cater for an actual couple.

A reporter came around and apparently asked her a hypothetical question about
pizzas for a gay wedding. They don't even do catering.

[AngryAmish]

38. Then what the fuck?

Honestly, what the fuck?

[PoliticAverse]

39. WTF indeed. Apparently the Internet can lead to viral insanity n/t

[LovingA2andMI]

40. That's why I knew this was a scam

It smelled SCAM, it sounded like SCAM and darn it -- it turns out it is indeed a SCAM.

[Ezlivin]

23. TheBlaze needs to raise $256,000,000.00

They've got a long way to go.

[YOHABLO]

28. I don't get it. Is this to make up for his ''loss'' or to take a vacation in his RV?

[Zorra]

32. I gotta hand it to the O'Connors, they fleeced the fools who gave them money righteously.

A few weeks more and they will be able to retire.

I hope they tell the people that gave them money that they totally gamed them.

On second thought, it would be smarter to keep milking them even after retirement.

[dembotoz]

37. waiting for glenn beck to sell liberty pizzas

[davidpdx]

43. Go Fundme allows fundraisers for homophobic and racist people

I believe they have already been pressured once to cancel and return money to people and it needs to be done again. These people are acting like martyrs because they think that their business should some how be allowed to discriminate and faced a ton of backlash over it. Fuck'em.