A fundraiser for the Indiana pizzeria that closed its doors amid widespread outrage over its owners’ beliefs about homosexuality topped $500,000 in less than 48 hours.
A crew from Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze TV network on Wednesday afternoon set up the fundraiser for the O’Connor family, which owns Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Ind., on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe. Donations poured in at an impressive clip.
The O’Connor family garnered national attention when they told a local TV station earlier this week that they supported the Hoosier State’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act and would refuse to cater a same-sex wedding if asked to do so.
They clarified that they would never refuse service to a gay or non-Christian customer who came into the restaurant to eat, however.
Critics of the law bombarded Memories Pizza’s Yelp page with negative reviews and flooded the restaurant with phony orders, forcing the O’Connor family to close up shop Wednesday.
Co-owner Crystal O’Connor said Thursday night on Fox’s “Cavuto” that the family appreciated donors’ support and would reopen the restaurant sometime soon.
She also doubled down on her opposition to hypothetically catering a same-sex wedding.
“It is not a sin that we bring gays into our establishment and just serve them. It is a sin, though, if we cater their wedding,” she told host Neil Cavuto. “We feel we are participating. We’re putting a stamp of approval on their wedding. And we cannot do that.”
