An Indiana pizzeria netted over $840,000 through fundraising site GoFundMe in just three days after a widespread furor over its owners' anti-gay comments to a local TV station prompted it to shut down.
Last week, Kevin and Crystal O'Connor, who own Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana, told a local ABC-affiliate that they agreed with the state's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and would refuse to cater a gay wedding.
The comments landed the small-town pizza joint in the middle of a national firestorm over the controversial state law, which could have made it easier for businesses to turn away LGBT customers. After an outpouring of one-star Yelp reviews, threatening phone calls and social media outrage, the owners decided to temporarily close its doors.
Meanwhile, a GoFundMe page set up by a reporter from The Blaze, a conservative news site founded by Glenn Beck, began to gain traction. By Saturday, the fund had raised over four times its stated goal of $200,000 from nearly 30,000 donors.
After an onslaught of nationwide backlash, including multiple state boycotts, Indiana legislators adjusted the state law this week to allay concerns that it would allow discrimination against LGBT people.
In an interview with The Blaze on Thursday, the O'Connors said they now plan to re-open the restaurant, which they refer to as a "Christian establishment."
"Even without the money — that's a secondary thing — just the kind words is what really built me back up," Kevin O'Connor said. "You gotta have money to live, but it's not important. We would have gotten by."
All of that support seems to have spilled over onto other businesses that came under fire for refusing to serve same-sex weddings.
A GoFundMe page set up for the owner of a Seattle-area flower shop who was fined $1,000 and sued for refusing to sell wedding flowers to a gay couple has garnered nearly $90,0000. While the page has been up for three months, the Seattle Times reports that nearly half of those donations have appeared in the last several days.
Barronelle Stutzman, the 70-year-old owner of Arlene's Flowers and Gifts said she denied the couple because same-sex weddings are against her Southern Baptist beliefs.
"I certainly don’t relish the idea of losing my business, my home, and everything else that your lawsuit threatens to take from my family, but my freedom to honor God in doing what I do best is more important," Stutzman wrote in a letter to the Washington attorney general two days after a court ruled that she had violated the state's consumer protection laws.
In a statement about the ruling in February, Washington attorney general Bob Ferguson said the state has strict laws in place to prohibit discrimination. "The law is clear: If you choose to provide a service to couples of the opposite sex, you must provide the same service to same-sex couples."
Neither business returned Mashable's requests for comment on Sunday.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press