So there's a relatively new donut shop in the Strip District. People are raving about the donut's freshness, their deliciousness and how the owner is something of a bigot. One post from his blog, http://ronrazete.blogspot.com/2009/01/big-day.html:

Based on the cast of characters that President Obama has picked to govern with him, it promises to be a truly historic four years. Sadly, I'll wager that these four years (and God help us all if he gets eight, but with this dilusional, uneducated and morally bankrupt voting base he has, he's a shoe-in) will go down in history as the straw that broke the camel's back. Our representative republic is hanging by a thread and now all three branches of the government are run by liberals who are rabid to de-construct the Constitution and radically change our way of life.

This crowd will not rest until Homosexuality is mainstream; until the Second Amendment is done away with; until abortion on demand is as common and accepted as going to the dentist; until sexual images and strip clubs line our streets and suburbs; until government education is started in the womb; until disagreement with their political party is "hate speech" and becomes a crime; until they pass the Fairness Doctrine and rid the county of Conservative talk radio; until they transfer our sovriegnty to the UN, etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, the name of his business is Peace, Love and Little Donuts. The business slogan: Feed Your Inner Hippie. If he's turning a profit, this guy is a genius at the level of Rupert Murdoch, his Fox News Views and MySpace carnal indulgences somehow coexisting under the same umbrella.

I'm incredibly curious to see how this plays out in 6 months. He'll be a case study in blogging and business sense. Can the two ever coexist? Can one support the other? Will the long tail of the Internet forever drag behind Peace, Love and Little Donuts?

The Little Donuts home page encourages people to check out the shop's Urban Spoon profile, where users can rate the quality of the food. Things were going well so far, with 75% approving of the little donuts on October 1st. The past few days of reviews are filled with other people like me discovering his blog, and their backlash. Now the rating hovers near 47%.

Does it matter what the beliefs of the manufacturer or proprietor are when you're choosing what to buy or where to eat?

People stopped going to Wendy's for a while in 1997 because the company pulled its ads from the show Ellen after Ellen Degeneres came out on air (and in real life). Wendy's still has about 6,000 stores up and running. On the other end of things, you have organizations like the American Family Association boycotting McDonald's because the company donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and the VP of communications at McD's was given a seat on the board of directors for NGLCC.

The AFA director of special projects, Randy Sharp said, "The franchise owners understood very early that this was an issue that McDonald's did not need to be involved in from a corporate level and they needed to stick with serving good food products in a convenient way, at a good price."

Is that the solution? Don't say anything and stick to doing what the market wants? McDonald's later said, "it is our policy to not be involved in political and social issues. McDonald's remains neutral on same sex marriage or any 'homosexual agenda' as defined by the American Family Association."

Conservative values won that battle.

But do businesses fear the wrath of the right more than the left? I mean, the right has the people already organized in churches and by beliefs in common, conservative causes. The left is everybody else, motivated for their minority causes, disjointed.

How significant is one donut shop in the big picture? National boycotts and outrage often make news, but this is some ground-level, small-town stuff. Honestly, I've not known Pittsburgh to be so vocal (on the Internet) about a business's values. The past week was filled with message board posts and Facebook updates slogging Razete with criticism. A larger lesbian (not the BBW kind) website even posted about it. Homophobic Donuts and Free Speech? A Pittsburgh Paradox.

In boycotting McDonald's, where is the impact felt, the CEOs, the franchise owners, the employees losing shift hours? What if the Razete family gets kicked to the curb when daddy's business takes a dive? Does the public do more damage with a boycott than by supporting him? Could he learn anything if consequential action isn't taken?

If the shop goes under, what does Razete think the cause was, the Obama supporters, the market, the fear of carbs? Maybe he'd grow more resentful of the liberals for crushing his dreams. Maybe he'd realize that being presumptuous and fearful is bad. Maybe he'd just learn not to post his opinions online - which seems to have occurred already.

The original blog was taken down during the time I've been writing this. He did post one final thought before taking everything offline:

A young woman came into my shop today and shared with me that some people have read my blog and now are busy doing what they can to damage me and my family by telling others that I am a horrible person. Apparently, my viewpoint and opinions have been interpreted as not endorsing their lifestyle choices or their political views. Although I don't look to offend anyone, I find it ironic that many people who stand under the banner of "acceptance", are in their own nature, unwilling to accept anyone who disagrees with them. Does anyone else find that ironic?

I make the best donuts I know how, and people have gone to Urbanspoon and given our product a negative rating because they are unhappy with my opinion. One person said that I should keep my opinion to myself so that nobody would know what I thought! Yet these same people who cry out for legitimacy, attack anyone who doesn't agree with their positions and choices. That to me is the epitome of hypocrisy. I'm not ashamed of who I am, although I admit I am a work in progress. I will not couch my faith or my person-hood for any reason, especially not to sell a donut.

I have been kind and respectful to everyone that has come into my shop. Not just to sell them something, but I try to be the best version of myself that I can be. I take being generous seriously, along with all of God's commandments. I try to love people and hate sin. Most of what I write about is the struggle to do that without a ton of human debris in my wake. Everyone wants love and peace. The problem is with SIN. I didn't invent sin (although my wife might joke that I am trying to perfect it), nor did I define sin. I just happen to believe like most people, that there is a better life to be lived if we avoid sin. That requires a knowledge of what IS sin, and my source for that is the Bible. If that makes me the scorn of people and hated... then I say what Martin Luther said... I can not recant the truth. I would welcome the chance to defend my ideas or my faith but only two people have asked me to explain my writings. Others are taking some paragraphs and sending them to others in an attempt to amplify one of my musings. I have a saying for people who try to demonize others by focusing on one attribute or expression... "you have to walk over mile of balance and reason to have that opinion".

Oh well. Sounds like resent wins this round.

I eat donuts maybe twice a year and typically regret it just as often. I don't align myself with a lot of what Razete is against, but the idea of anybody fearmongering bothers me, and food is supposed to be about love, and a lot of the freaks (see below) he refers to are friends of mine.

I will just have to channel some of my latent Christian Values and forgive him.

But Google's Cache won't forgive so easily.

For further reading, check out these other great posts from Ron Razete:

Obama's voters are freaks

I'm not depressed about the election anymore, but I am very discouraged. I am seeing more clearly than before. I had quite the epiphany watching the hoards of freaks screaming OBAMA, OBAMA after the election. They appeared mindless... and under an Obama presidency, they will remain mindless.

Channellng Tom Cruise

Liberals indoctrinate children in our public schools and make sure they have no access to the facts (read - the "re-writing" of history) and no capacity or concept of dissent. Controlling their rank and file through the teachers union and producing some of the most disrespectful, dishonest and violent teenagers in history. They use drugs to dampen the effect, but make no mistake, they create the problem and then medicate children to provide the solution.

They control our colleges and universities. Magnifying themselves with lofty degrees and tenure... controlling the type of educator that gets selected to be overpaid; while building on the mush that has been so dutifully instilled into the minds of children starting in pre-school. They then also mercifully provide the perfect environment for access to vice. substance abuse, sexually transmitted disease and abortion, further limiting their ability to see with any clarity or to recover from those experiences to one day become a person of personal achievement.

Brilliant use of metaphor

What people on the left, and those that hate America, fail to calculate is that for all its problems, vices, excesses and the governmental mistakes that are amplified by our liberal media and displayed for our enemies foreign and domestic, is that there is a "baby" in all this "bathwater". And that baby is Freedom. Freedom is indeed the societal solution to the human condition. Sadly, that Freedom, when expressed by people who mistake the amazing gift of Freedom for a license to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and to reject any laws, traditions or common decency/ civility, it becomes painfully obvious that those reveling in their expression of more and more debauchery are not at all realizing what those who designed or died delivering it intended.

Declaring McCarthyism was right

Sadly, McCarthyism (he was right by the way) was successfully so demonized, that today there is no such thing as un-American, let alone treason. The left has what they call "hate" speech. Whenever you disagree with them over anything it is "hate" speech. I say that everything that spews out of the radical left is actual hate speech. It is the misplaced tolerance for this kind of thing by God-fearing, good people that has transformed this country from its decency and kindhearted roots to what it is today. Good people have done nothing, a recipe for disaster according to Edmund Burke. We need to all take steps to recapture the land we love. Small steps and large ones. Subtle steps and bold ones. Everyone doing his or her part to wrestle the future of America away from crazies, kooks and freaks. If not, trust me, Sarah is going to have way more than two Mommies.