If you follow me on social media, you know that I never bought the idea that the pizza place in Indiana who proudly stated that they would refuse to cater a gay wedding raised $842,000. Everything about that GoFundMe campaign looked fishy. First of all, the donations were nearly entirely anonymous with no messages of support. Who the hell makes a political statement donation without making a political statement? On any other funding campaign, the majority of donations have a name and a comment from most of the contributors. This one had virtually none. The next thing was the dollar amount. Something happens after a while in fundraising campaigns; people will go to contribute and after a certain amount has been raised, they don’t end up contributing. Wouldn’t you think that at (say) 200k, contributors would tell themselves that the pizza hillbillies don’t need their money because they’ve raised plenty?
My suspicion is that they were getting robodonations from a big anti-gay group like Focus On The Family, Brian Fisher, or any other group that has the nerve to use the word ‘family to push their family busting agenda forward.
But this post isn’t about that. This post is about thanking the pizza hillbillies and their allies. Because they allegedly made so much money letting their bigoted freak flags fly, other bigots felt empowered to let let their hate rip. Their really stupid strategy to grab some short term headlines, has really put one of the last remaining nails in the homophobe coffin. The most predictable thing in the world happened, when the pizza hillbillies appeared to get rich because of their hate. Another homophobe boldly came out, thinking that he would mine him some of that hate gold from them thar hills.
Enter Brian Klawiter, a car repair shop owner who has been victimized enough, and he’s going to use the few literacy skills he possesses to let everyone know:
Enough is enough.
Our rights as conservative Americans are being squashed more and more everyday. Apparently if you are white (or close to it), you have a job, go to church, and own a gun
… T, that translates into racists, privileged, bigoted, conspiracy theorist. Too many of us say nothing. Well,freedom of speech isn’t just for Liberals,.THEY are the ones that need to learn to"co-exist",coexist. THEY are the ones who need to WORK to be"equal"equal.Therefore, in the spirit of freedom (whats left of it) and MY right to operate MY business as I see fit:
Guns ARE allowed at DIESELTEC, so much so in fact that we will offer a discount if you bring in your gun. (
"On duty"cops are excluded because that‘s not their gun,. That‘s my gun bought with my money,.off duty absolutely!Armed off duty officers are welcome to take advantage of this offer)I am a Christian. My company will be run in a way that reflects that. Dishonesty, thievery, immoral behavior, etc. will not be welcome
dat MY place of business.(I would not hesitate to refuse service to an openly gay person or persons. Homosexuality is wrong, period. If you want to argue this fact with me then I will put your vehicle together with all bolts and no nuts and you can see how that works.)We
,as a team, work hard for whats ours. We are not protected by unions or contracts. We absolutely MUST provide our customers with a service level that would make them come back or tell their friends about us. We don’t have a"right", and we are not"entitled"to our pay. We must EARN it.I am not racists
,. You are for assuming I am, however, I am really quick to judge...if it acts like a duck, and quacks like a duck…It IS a free country and I support your right to your opinion
,. That being said, if you don’t like what I have to say, I reserve that same right to tell you to go cry to your momma (cause your daddy would probably smack ya’,. Better yet,yes,go tell your dad.)
I took the liberty of grading it, although I did leave the colloquialisms in for fun. I hope you don’t mind.
Naturally, a GoFundMe page went up because….he was anticipating losing business? Felt he deserved to get paid for extra effort in doing a racist/ homophobic/ ammosexual/ Christian victimhood quadruple axel? Apparently, just saying something stupid and hateful is reason enough to panhandle the world. No actual cause or need is necessary. Just allowing fellow haters the satisfaction of throwing a dollar in the hate jar is justification in itself. GoFundMe ended up taking the page down after a few hours. I couldn’t find a cache of the page, but it apparently only raised five bucks from a married lesbian mother of three who commented, “Will you except [sic] my money? Or is it too gay for you?”
The single five dollar contribution in the form of a bitch slap is awesome. It actually demonstrates the opposite of what the pizza hillbillies’ page supposedly demonstrated (and it makes that page that much more suspicious, thereby adding credibility to my theory). I hope that more people try this because I am certain that they will get the same result; virtually no public support. By the way, I don’t agree with GoFundMe taking down pages. If your website is a conduit for people to raise money for a cause, you shouldn’t censor those causes. Let the murdering cop raise money. Let that cop’s victim’s family raise money to civilly sue the fuck out of the cop. Let the hateful hillbillies raise money. Let anyone donate to anything. You don’t get to act as a moral compass for a small but vocal segment of the country. The easiest way to let people judge their own morality, as well as the courage of their convictions, is to not allow anonymous donations. I wouldn’t be opposed to GoFundMe doing that, but I don’t feel comfortable with their selective removal of fundraising campaigns. I guess that’s just me. I believe that over time, my views will prevail because they’re the morally correct ones. If a loathsome person raises a few hundred thousand dollars along the way, that doesn’t bother me because it’s a nice reality check on where the country is on issues. I promise you that there won’t be a nickel in donations for homophobic, "Christian" pizzeria owners (who nonetheless serve sausage) ten years from now. Let them raise as much money as they can, until they can’t anymore.
That five dollar protest donation isn’t the only response the illiterate, homophobic car repair guy got. Cummins Inc, a huge car engine manufacturer contacted Deiseltec and told them not to use their logo in their store window. That happened a day after the illiterate and homophobic rant.
But my favorite response (so far) came from Jeffrey Mapes, a bankruptcy lawyer in Grand Rapids, MI. He posted the following letter on his practices’ website;
Dear Dieseltec:
Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Jeffrey Mapes, and I specialize in bankruptcy law — helping individuals and corporations when things go wrong. I noticed your post on Facebook where you decided to alienate most of the general public by stating that you will refuse service to openly homosexual people. This is certainly an unorthodox business strategy, and perhaps it will work for you, but I get the feeling you will need a bankruptcy attorney pretty soon and I wanted to offer my services. Like you, I am white, male, Christian, a business owner, and a gun owner. Unlike you, I provide services to everyone regardless of their sexual orientation because it doesn’t matter to me — I hope this won’t be a deal breaker for you.
If that upsets you, let me tell you a little bit more about our office to try and persuade you. The first thing you will notice is how friendly and compassionate the office staff is. Despite your inane, incoherent and just plain dumb comments, we know that everyone makes mistakes and we want to help you overcome them. They will also be more than willing to help you with some basic grammar that you seem to struggle with.
If you still need more convincing, let me assure you that we will make certain that your bankruptcy petition is filed correctly and there are no errors. You stated in your post that you would incorrectly assemble a vehicle in order to prove a point. I want to let you know that despite the fact that I would love to prove a point to you about tolerance, I won’t compromise my standards of quality to do so. After all, I have to look in the mirror at the end of the day and if I didn’t do my best for everyone, I would have trouble sleeping. Perhaps you could give me pointers on how you sleep at night?
Just a few other housekeeping items. While I certainly don’t encourage people to bring guns into my office, so long as you have the proper permit and handle it responsibly, you can bring your gun along. I would only ask that you refrain from menacingly stroking your weapon while you quietly sing David Allen Coe songs to yourself. I also think you have a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment and how it works, but that is a long discussion and we should save that for when we meet in person.
Well Dieseltec, I hope I’ve convinced you that Mapes Law Offices is the right place for you to file your bankruptcy. I would like to leave you with some words of inspiration from the dramatic film Billy Madison and I hope that you will take them to heart:
"What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
Sincerely,
Jeffrey D. Mapes
I like it. I think that people should be able to speak their minds (unless their mind is full of death threats or any threat for that matter), whether that’s with their words or with their contributions. Why? Because I’m not worried about opposing views. I’m confident that mine will win in the long run.
So please, homophobes, racists, anti semites, lay here on the word’s couch and tell us how you feel. And everyone else, feel free to reply. But for fucks sake, can we cut the crap with the threats? How fucking insecure are you, about your point of view, that you have to resort to threats of violence?
