Pizza Truck Customers Form Circle of Love Around Same-Sex Couple After Hatemonger Tells Them to Cut Out the 'Gay Shit'
Looking to grab a piece of pizza with extra "slut sauce" from Mikey's Late Night Slice truck, Joel Diaz and his friend Ethan got in line with the rest of the after-hours set.
It was a cold night in Columbus, Ohio, so Joel and Ethan held hands and huddled for warmth — much to the dismay of the queue's resident homophobe.
"The guy in front of us turns around and tells us to cut our gay shit out," Diaz, Chief Development Office at AIDS Resource Center Ohio, recalled in a Facebook post.
He says the words startled him a bit — but that was nothing compared to the shock of what came next.
He writes in a piece for Huffington Post:
Almost every single person in that line made it known to him it was not OK for him to speak to us like that. [...]
I didn't expect to see allies so willing to chime in and let this guy know that his hate speech wouldn't be tolerated. The best part though was as he grew more irate and vocal the guys who work the truck stopped what they were doing and leaned towards the window and told him they would not serve him because he was spewing hate. They said they support everyone in our community and that he should get out of line because they would not be serving him. He begrudgingly got out of line and walked away escorted by a friend who had been hanging back.
On Facebook, Diaz signed his post, "No slut sauce for you mr. homophobe."
After the uplifting anecdote began spreading on various social sites, Mikey's Late Night Slice issued their own statement concerning the incident.
"We are humbled by the attention that this whole thing has gotten us," the mobile pizza joint's culinary team wrote. "But we feel that the greatest recognition belongs to our neighborhood as a whole, here in the Short North...It is so wonderfully comforting to know that the hearts of our neighbors are filled with kindness and tolerance."
Known for its abundance of gay nightclubs and bars, the Short North also happens to be home to the Columbus Pride Festival — the largest pride event in the Midwest.
