RFRA: Michiana business wouldn't cater a gay wedding Posted: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 10:40 PM EDT Updated: Wednesday, April 1, 2015 7:37 AM EDT Posted:Updated: 
 
 A small-town pizza shop is saying they agree with Governor Pence and the signing of the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act. 
 
 
 
 The O'Connor family, who owns Memories Pizza, says they have a right to believe in their religion and protect those ideals. 
 
 
 
 “If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no,” says Crystal O'Connor of Memories Pizza. 
 
 
 
 She and her family are standing firm in their beliefs. 
 
 
 
 The O'Connors have owned Memories Pizza in Walkerton for 9 years. 
 
 
 
 It's a small-town business, with small-town ideals. 
 
 
 
 “We are a Christian establishment,” says O'Connor. 
 
 
 
 The O'Connor family prides themselves in owning a business that reflects their religious beliefs. 
 
 
 
 “We're not discriminating against anyone, that's just our belief and anyone has the right to believe in anything,” says O'Connor. 
 
 
 
 So, when Governor Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, the family was not disappointed. 
 
 
 
 “We definitely agree with the bill,” says O'Connor. 
 
 
 
 When ABC 57 asked O'Connor about the negative backlash the bill has been getting for being a discriminatory piece of legislation, she says that's simply not true. 
 
 
 
 “I do not think it's targeting gays. I don't think it's discrimination,” says O'Connor. “It's supposed to help people that have a religious belief.” 
 
 
 
 O'Connor says because she's a Christian, she and her family don't support a gay marriage and that is their right. 
 
 
 
 Kevin O'Connor, Crystal's father, says he believes the negative backlash the bill and its supporters are getting isn't fair. 
 
 
 
 “That lifestyle is something they choose. I choose to be heterosexual. They choose to be homosexual. Why should I be beat over the head to go along with something they choose?” says Kevin O'Connor. 
 
 
 
 The O'Connor family told ABC 57 news that if a gay couple or a couple belonging to another religion came in to the restaurant to eat, they would never deny them service. 
 
 
 
 The O'Connors say they just don't agree with gay marriages and wouldn't cater them if asked to. ||||| The pizza parlor owners who received death threats and were subjected to an online hate campaign will reopen for business tomorrow with the backing of $842,000 from well wishers and a defiant message that they stand by their opposition to gay weddings. They were going to open today but were advised to hold off for security reasons. 
 
 In an exclusive first interview inside Memories Pizza restaurant since it closed down last week, owner Kevin O’Connor and daughter Crystal emerged from hiding and told Daily Mail Online they had been heartened by the support of 29,000 people who donated and many more who wrote to them. 
 
 They revealed they are set to share their new fortune with disabled children, a women’s help group, fire fighters, police trusts, Christian churches and Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman, 70, who was fined after declaring she would not serve a gay wedding. 
 
 The tiny pizza joint in the unremarkable town of Walkerton, which has a population of just over 2000, became the focal point of a raging national debate over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was passed last month. 
 
 Scroll down for video 
 
 Back in business: Kevin O’Connor and daughter Crystal emerged from hiding and told Daily Mail Online they had been heartened by the support of 29,000 people who donated and many more who wrote to them 
 
 Controversy: The tiny pizza joint in the unremarkable town of Walkerton, which has a population of just over 2000, became the focal point of a raging national debate over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was passed last month 
 
 Critics said it would allow individuals and businesses to use religion as a defense against any accusation of discrimination from gay people. 
 
 The bill was severely tested over the last week after Crystal, 22, a devout Christian, told a local radio station that the restaurant she runs with her father would never cater a wedding of two people of the same sex. 
 
 Mr. O’Connor and his daughter were still adamant today, despite the furor that has engulfed them, that they would refuse to serve gay marriages with their pizzas. 
 
 He added: ‘ If any child of mine came out as gay and entered into a gay marriage, I would still love them, but Daddy wouldn’t be going to the wedding.’ 
 
 The O’Connors, who serve around 100 pizzas a week to locals, admitted they had never actually been commissioned to provide their 16 inch $12.99 cheese pizzas or pulled pork $5.75 sandwiches to a same sex wedding. 
 
 Crystal said:’ I was asked a hypothetical question and that was the answer I gave. But I didn’t hope to gain anything by saying what I said. 
 
 ‘I wasn’t trying to score points. It is something I believe in from my heart and my faith about gay weddings. But I don’t regret what I said. 
 
 ‘I have been scared, but God is giving me strength. I think it is nothing compared to what Christ had to suffer.’ 
 
 Speaking to ABC57 a week ago, Crystal said: 'If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no.’ 
 
 The remark was quickly picked up by opponents of the new law and sparked an intense and angry debate, with threats being made against the O’Conners, forcing them to close down and go into hiding until today. 
 
 Crystal said: ‘I don’t like attention, period. Before all this I was the “Pizza Girl” and I didn’t like that and now I got even more attention. 
 
 People were looking at me and all that brought my spirits down. But the support we got also lifted me and made me stronger and humbled. But it has been difficult. Crystal O'Connor 
 
 ‘I don’t know how to take it.' 
 
 She said the abuse in telephone calls and in online remarks had frightened her of being attacked when walking along the sidewalk in tiny Walkerton which is primarily set around a small stretch of a busy highway. 
 
 ‘I didn’t want to leave my apartment. I was scared. 
 
 ‘People were looking at me and all that brought my spirits down. But the support we got also lifted me and made me stronger and humbled. But it has been difficult.’ 
 
 Her father, who has owned the business for around nine years, said: ‘I am overwhelmed and not just because of the money, but the positive feedback that we have met with. 
 
 ‘There are just a lot of good people out there. It seems like all we hear about is the bad ones and when something like this happens, it seems like the bad ones are the first to come out and get after you. 
 
 ‘I don’t hate these people. They are just angry. I am not really sure what they are so angry about. So many things today are topsy turvey. What used to be wrong is now right and what used to be right is now wrong. I don’t hold anything against them. 
 
 ‘When this country was founded it was a Christian nation and those were the rights given to us by the founders and before that by God. People just don’t want you to have those rights any more. 
 
 ‘I just don’t understand it all. But it is kind of like fighting the fire. The fire burns big until thefire trucks get there. The fire rages and the more supportive people are like the fire trucks as they come in and start displacing the flames, putting itdown and building your spirits back up.’ 
 
 Postman Kevin Kollar delivers the mail to Memories Pizza and More in Walkerton yesterday. Kollar said the restaurant went from receiving about four letters a day to 40 or more 
 
 He recalled how the fury began over a few words Crystal chose to reveal her deep rooted opposition to same sex marriages. 
 
 ‘This all happened last Tuesday. Crystal was by herself and I was by myself in a different spot.’ 
 
 He said his daughter telephoned him to discuss a reporter’s request for an interview on the ramifications of the new law and whether she should agree to talk. 
 
 Mr O’Conner said he considered the situation after he recalled a verse from the Bible ‘ when Christ said ‘If you deny me before a man, I will deny you before the father’. 
 
 He said he felt it would be denying his and his daughters Christian beliefs if they did not admit to their opposition against gay marriage. 
 
 After the interview had been broadcast and the negative remarks began, he said he saw his daughter’s despair. 
 
 ‘She was feeling more and more helpless about it and I was telling her ‘Its going to be ok...its not going to be that big. 
 
 ‘And then it just blew up and the ugliness arrived. But it was not a throwaway remark that she made. We do not believe in gay marriages, so we will not support them.’ 
 
 A local teacher sent a message out on Twitter, which was quickly deleted, calling for Memories Pizza to be firebombed. The message is now the subject of a police investigation and charges are being considered against her. The sports school coach has been suspended. 
 
 Creating memories: The O’Connors, who serve around 100 pizzas a week to locals, admitted they had never actually been commissioned to provide their 16 inch $12.99 cheese pizzas or pulled pork $5.75 sandwiches to a same sex wedding 
 
 Mr O’Connor said he had read some of the remarks against him and his daughter and he found them ‘vile and disgraceful’. 
 
 ‘I have seen some of the stuff and it disgusts me and I don’t know how one human being can think about doing something like that to another. I had never really thought about being hated before. 
 
 ‘But on the day after which was a Wednesday, stuff started rolling in and it really started lifting ourspirits. 
 
 ‘There were a whole lot of people out there who began voicing our support and just building our confidence. 
 
 ‘It is very encouraging to know there are other people out there who think the way you do and feel thesame way you feel. 
 
 ‘They support our right to be able to have that belief and I compare this case like that of conscientiousobjectors. 
 
 ‘There were people who kind of beat them up because they wouldn’t go to war for their country, but they understood. And some of them did fight. 
 
 They shouldn’t suffer in the way they have and my only problem with them is that I don’t like their pizzas very much. A friend ordered one once and I didn’t really care for it. Whitney Doody 
 
 ‘But some were allowed the right not to have to fight for their country because that was there religious belief… that is how I see it. ‘ 
 
 He denied being homophobic and wanting to raise opposition to gay weddings. 
 
 Pointing to the front of the restaurant, which is decorated with pictures of Jesus and Christian verse and pictures of Elvis, he said: ‘I don’t care who comes through that door. 
 
 ‘They are people. I don’t care if they are gay. I don’t care if they walk in on their hands. I don’t care if their heads are attached to their knee. 
 
 ‘They are more than welcome to come in and eat. ‘That is not what is about. We believe that it is not right for a man to marry a man and for a woman to marry a woman. People could end up marrying trees…come on!’ 
 
 Whitney Doody, 26, a lesbian who lives in Walkerton, said she had no ill feelings against the owners of Memories Pizza. 
 
 “They are entitled to feel how they feel. They have their religious rights just the same as I have my gay rights. 
 
 ‘They shouldn’t suffer in the way they have and my only problem with them is that I don’t like their pizzas very much. A friend ordered one once and I didn’t really care for it.’ 
 
 Bar owner Larry Stoner has installed a sign outside his business Club 23 which says ‘ We don’t discriminate.’ 
 
 He said: ‘I don’t have any problems with gays in Walkerton. They are as welcome in my bar the same as anybody else. 
 
 ‘But I do have a problem with people who have no money because my business cannot operate with those kind of people coming in.’ 
 
 Mr O’Connor, whose cell phone rings to the tune of ‘When You Wish Upon A star’ from Disney's Pinocchio, said he was re-opening his restaurant after receiving police assurances about his safety. 
 
 But his decision to lift the shutters for the first time in a week was also for commercial reasons as business had been slack and the till hasn’t rung in a week. 
 
 Whitney Doody, a Walkerton, Ind. resident and openly gay woman, said she has not been discriminated against in the small community. despite the recent controversy involving a restaurant in the town 
 
 ‘Business was slow. But it starts picking up. We do a little over 100 pizzas a week. We are not a big city and can’t charge much more than we do.’ 
 
 He said he would not describe himself as a rich man or a near-millionaire because much of the donated money will be given away to what he deems are worthy causes and he will also make up the deficit caused by the enforced shut down. 
 
 The news and entertainment network Blaze began a fundraising campaign on the website GoFundMe to help the O'Connors and the fund stood at $842,592 from 29,166 people when it closed. 
 
 The O’Connors are being advised by financial guru Ed Butowsky, an expert in the investment wealth management industry. 
 
 He said: ‘Mr O’Connor and Crystal are genuine people. He is devastated that he has given Walkerton a bad name and people around the US might view it as a gay hating town. 
 
 ‘It is not that. But the O'Connors believe what they believe and that is their right. They want to share the money they have received and we are discussing how best that should happen. 
 
 ‘Nothing has been decided 100 per cent, but some charities will receive money as will Barronelle Stutzman who they wish to support. 
 
 Christian Ms Stutzman refused to sell flowers for the 2013 wedding of longtime customers Robert Ingersoll and his partner Curt Freed, on religious grounds. 
 
 A judge declared last month that her refusal to sell flowers to the gay wedding couple violated the Washington Law Against Discrimination, which makes bias based on sexual orientation illegal. She was fined $1,000, but a separate fund-raising campaign on her behalf has brought in $94,000 and is rising.
– We've heard plenty of public outcry about Gov. Mike Pence signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law last week. So who is cheering the law on? A family-owned pizza joint in Walkerton, Indiana. "If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no," Crystal O'Connor of Memories Pizza tells ABC 57. The station reports the family says gays are welcome to simply dine there—just not to order a wedding pie. "We are a Christian establishment," says Crystal. "We're not discriminating against anyone, that's just our belief and anyone has the right to believe in anything." Crystal's dad, Kevin, tells the station he also concurs with the bill. "I choose to be heterosexual. They choose to be homosexual. Why should I be beat over the head to go along with something they choose?" he says of potential gay customers trying to get their nuptials catered. ABC 57 reports the reaction has been swift and harsh, noting the pizzeria's Facebook rating has fallen from a 5 to a 1.2; its rating is currently a 1 on Yelp, too, where some of the current posts are definitely NSFW. (Gov. Pence insists the law is being "grossly misconstrued.")