Crystal O'Connor of Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana, has her finger on the pulse of what gays want at their weddings: pizza. But thanks to her home state's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, she can deny those carb-loving queers the sauce and cheese that they're just probably going stuff up their butts, anyway.
Indiana just passed its own version of a federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, due to take effect July 1, making it one of nearly 20 states (and the U.S. Congress) to have enacted such a bill. But while other RFRA bills range from the righteous to the innocuous, Indiana's is pernicious and scary—and anyone who tells you it's exactly the same is lying to you.
In the days since Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act last week, an encouraging multitude has stepped forward to denounce the law, which may allow business owners to refuse LGBT customers. That includes unlikely allies like a Republican mayor, several blue state governments, and now, in the fiercest condemnation yet, The Indianapolis Star.
Facing widespread criticism over a new "religious freedom" law that may allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT customers, Indiana Governor Mike Pence said this weekend that he was "determined to clarify" the bill distorted by "irresponsible headlines." Then, given an opportunity to do so on Sunday, the governor firmly refused to.
Indiana's governor just declared a public health emergency after at least 80 new cases of HIV were reported in a county that typically sees around five new cases each year.
On Friday, police say an Indiana man shot his 13-year-old neighbor nine times for laughing at his misfortune, killing the boy.
An Indiana man who confessed to murdering a woman at a Motel 6 led police to the bodies of at least three other women this weekend.
When Alex Rittenhouse showed up to play a soccer game against his former high school last Wednesday, he saw his mugshot printed on T-shirts worn by old classmates and their parents. "I was shocked, first, and then I thought, 'How did they get this picture?' Because I had never even seen the picture," his father Kevin Rittenhouse told WXIN.
Two women with an apparent death wish narrowly escaped an oncoming train crossing a bridge over Lake Lemon in Indiana earlier this month. The bridge too high up to jump from, the women had no choice but to lie down between the tracks. They survived, the Fox affiliate in Indianapolis reports, with just nine inches separating them from the train.
Haris Suleman, 17, died after his single-engine plane crashed near American Samoa early Wednesday. His father, Babar, was also on the plane with his son, and remains missing at sea. The two were attempting to fly around the world in 30 days to break a record and to raise money for a nonprofit that builds schools in rural Pakistan.
In the video above, we see several Lafayette, Ind. police officers surrounding a man in a wheelchair. Nicholas Kincade slowly rolls forward and over the foot of one of the officers, and the cop reacts swiftly, thrusting an arm into Kincade's neck and sending him toppling.
Attendees wait to register for the National Rifle Association's annual convention on Friday in Indianapolis. Image via AJ Mast/AP.
Roy Sun, 25, was a $70,000-a-year electrical engineer straight out of college. And why not? He'd gone to one of the best engineering schools in the country. He even studied, um, computer security in his free time. Which he had a lot of, since he never went to class.
