In an interview with conservative radio show The Jeff Adams Show last week, openly gay Southern Californian resident Courtney Hoffman spoke out about her decision to donate to the GoFundMe campaign supporting Memories Pizzeria, the Indiana pizzeria that found itself in the middle of a media firestorm after its owners declared they wouldn't cater same-sex weddings.
Hoffman, who is a buisness owner herself, wrote the following for the GoFundMe campaign (which ended up raising over $800,000 for Memories Pizzeria):
“As a member of the gay community, I would like to apologize for the mean spirited attacks on you and your business. I know many gay individuals who fully support your right to stand up for your beliefs and run your business according to those beliefs. We are outraged at the level of hate and intolerance that has been directed at you and I sincerely hope that you are able to rebuild.”
Hoffman's donation and declaration of support were quickly picked up by right wing outlets such as The Blaze, Townhall.com, and Breitbart.
“We started hearing all of these threats of violence and these just horrible hate-filled attacks that were thrown out at the pizzeria and it just seemed so vastly different from the gay community that we know,” explained Hoffman in the radio interview. “If we can remember that differences don't equal maliciousness, and try to find what we have in common — you know, the ands instead of the ors, maybe we can move beyond threats of violence and have open discussions of the things that we don't agree on.”
Watch the interview below.
starts at 11:40
