Pretty much any time an individual or organization gets into the news and it has something to do with a political or social issue (gay rights, feminism, whatever), they will get:
Death threats, and
Contributions from people who support their cause
This does not surprise me in the slightest, nor does it sadden or gladden me. It is just something that happens. I sort of wish there were a better way to track down the death threat people to keep that from happening, but apart from that I’m not too worked up over it.
As jsgoddess pointed out, this is hardly a sustainable model. Are these people going to send in a million bucks every time another business pops up announcing they won’t serve gay people? And really, is this sort of media hoopla really good for business long-term?
I used to live one town over from their location. It’s a shithole, to put it mildly. This will be the highlight of the owners’ (and probably their neighbors’) lives. That’s about all I have to say about that.
I’m really proud to live in Indiana again right about now. :rolleyes:
Indeed. People threatening death or some sort of illegal retribution is not okay, I don’t care how freaky, stupid, Nazi-like, or jerkish people are. They shouldn’t be threatened with anything but boycotts and mockery, where warranted.
Pfft. Sputter. Well, it’s relative. There are shitholes, and shitholes. I’m living in another one, unfortunately. But not nearly as bad as Walkerton, Indiana.
If you’re asking honestly, much of the area by Lake Michigan isn’t too bad…I basically grew up there. (We don’t speak about Gary, though.) Indianapolis is pretty hip, too, though I haven’t had much chance to explore lately. There are, oddly, probably more college towns per square mile than any other state, and many of those are nice in their own way. Bloomington/Brown County is tons of fun if you’re doing it right.
We had pizza for our rehearsal dinner, which they also would have presumably refused to cater (well, not ours. A gay couple’s rehearsal dinner I mean). Of course all we did was order a bunch of pizzas for pickup and bring them to the space, so non one had any idea what all the pizza was for anyway.
Cut the crap. The saw the opportunity to become “martyrs” and make money, and took it, then they closed the shop for hype. After the money and fame reaches a certain point they will “bravely” re-open the shop while people like you use them as a symbol.
I think this is the lesson that needs to come from this. Had those who wished to protest bigotry responded as responsible adults, instead of threatening violence and arson, things would have been very different.
The only thing that I take consolation in is that every dollar donated to this “cause”, is one less dollar that can go to something even worse.
It also underscores why it’s so important not to assume the free market will fix social problems. The free market is amoral. It doesn’t care about fairness or decency.
It’s not. ISTR the story itself or follow up including that they’d never actually catered a wedding. Their hypothetical both earned them death/arson threats and most of a million dollars.
I’m not talking about the threats. If they occurred then they were wrong. Nobody should be threatening other people with arson or other forms of violence.
But the hypocrisy you’re implying does not exist. There is no equivalence between conservatives being opposed to homosexuals and liberals being opposed to bigots.
Homophobia is wrong. It’s just like racism or sexism or anti-semitism. Treating people poorly because they are of a different sexual orientation or race or gender or religion is wrong.
Fighting these forms of intolerance is right. People should openly oppose intolerance. A business owner that refuses to serve a gay customer should be shamed by society. And people that refuse to patronize that business because of its intolerance should be proud of the stand they’ve taken.
How did anyone lose in this? right wing nutjobs giving their money to smarter right wing nutjobs willing to exploit them is par for the course. Did you think any of that money was going to planned parenthood donations instead or something? If anything the only ones who lost anything here are right wing republican nutjobs like Ted Cruz who would have gotten that money instead.
The law will become so unpopular, and backlash will become so large at first, that almost no other businesses will publicly discriminate, even if it is legal.
Then, when almost nothing changes, the lazy public will stop caring that this law is on their books, and it will stay on the books, like a bunch of other outdated, absurd laws cooked up by batshits that no one ever bothered to repeal.
So, overall, a massive win for the equal rights side, because it shows that society actually supports equality, but then people will forget to do the thing that is necessary here, and toss that law in the trash.
It’s like those states with laws that say atheists can’t serve in public office, that no one does anything about, because they’re unenforceable. It’s still effing insulting.
