“The Indianapolis Star,” March 28: “Thousands protest ‘religious freedom’ law in Indiana.”

We read under this headline that “thousands of people gathered in downtown Indianapolis on Saturday to protest the passage this week of a controversial ‘religious freedom’ law that critics say could allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.” Protesters chanted and held signs reading “No hate in our state.”

Hundreds of editorialists, politicians, news-readers, bloggers, pundits, and tweeting twitter-critters have expressed their thoughts and feelings about hate in Indiana. None of them, I’m glad to say, have supported or recommended it. American media’s ‘Big Bertha,’ the New York Times, identifies the epicenter of Indiana’s hate in Eugene Robinson’s column, “Pizza With a Side of Hate” on April 3.

The Timesman found it in Walkerton, Indiana, a town inhabited by 2,000 Hoosiers, with the help of a local television reporter and asked Crystal O’Connor, one of the family, about the law. The girl was caught flat-footed, without an chance to reflect on the dangers of exercising one’s right of free speech in today’s America. She replied that Memories’ pizzas were available to all comers, but the family’s religious convictions would not allow them to cater for a gay wedding.

Eugene really hated that response. He allowed that there is no indication that rampant discrimination is taking place in the 20 states which already have these “religious freedom” laws.

Indeed, no one has identified even one case of a gay being denied any service or product in Indiana. But, as Eugene goes on to explain “that’s not the point. The clear target is same-sex marriage, and the intention is to reassure citizens that discrimination against same-sex couples is at least theoretically permissible.”

Did you get that? Maybe you should read it again to be sure. I’ve re-read it myself. Several times. And I’m feeling a little uncertain about the man’s point. Nearly as I can make it out he’s saying that people don’t like gay marriage receive reassurance from this law that they have a theoretical right to refuse their services and merchandise to a gay marriage ceremony.

The fact that no one has been refused goods and services on grounds of sexual proclivities is inconsequential, compared to the theoretical possibility that the law may have opened the door to such horrors. We all know how dangerous open doors can be. I ran into one myself years ago. Suffered a nasty bruise to accompany my hang-over the following morning

Now we can all agree that “theoretical possibilities” are not the worst manifestation of hatred known to history, but Crystal’s off-hand remark about her families’ unacceptable religious beliefs has engulfed Memories Pizza in a prairie-fire of real hatred.. The family shut their establishment’s doors, more or less went into hiding at home, and contemplated leaving town because of the incessant bombardment from the “Internet Rage Machine.” The family has suffered cyber-attacks on their website, including the attachment of gay porn links; toxic blathering on social media and lots of such top-of-the-line venom. One high school golf coach asked on Twitter, “Who’s going to Walkerton to burn down Memories Pizza with me?”

This, so far, is the sole clearly identified outburst of hate in the state of Indiana. Sympathizers have sent hundreds of thousand of dollars to help them out and they have begun to think about re-opening as soon as the uproar abates. We can’t, of course, dismiss the possibility that those donations are themselves evidence of hatred. I’m sure the NYT columnist will identify them as such.

One more time: this is the single conspicuous incident of hatred among the Hoosiers so far. It does not matter. The nation’s MuddyStream Media will guarantee that a year from now millions of Americans will preserve a vague and hazy memory of a time when Indiana was racked by a huge conflagration of hatred, with gays being hunted and tormented by the thousands.

By the way, Eugene Robinson appears to be African-American, so the rules of Politicalcorrectitudinarianism, as I understand them, forbid me from describing him as an idiot, but readers are still allowed to think it.

By the way again. Ten years ago I wrote a “critical thinking” column about Maine’s new gay rights law. That column generated e-mail traffic from gays as far away as Saskatchewan (I kid you not, as Captain Queeg used to say). It was all quite civil, apparently motivated by a desire to make me understand their situations. I endured no tsunami of hatred.

Professor John Frary of Farmington, Maine is a former US Congress candidate and retired history professor, a Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United and publisher of www.fraryhomecompanion.com and can be reached at: [email protected]