Pizza: Always a Big Deal

Pizza's been in the news big time lately, and it is a big deal because of the LGBT rights issues involved. Memories Pizza in Indiana claimed they would not cater a same-sex wedding (not that this Mom and Pop outfit catered weddings anyway, but that's beside the point, and I don't really know of a wedding reception with pizza as the main course unless it was on the show Extreme Cheapskates, again, beside the point). This outfit, since closed, received almost a million dollars in support from most probably religious fundamentalists of a certain ilk.

Pizza, rather than a wedding cake, has become the food of controversy in the same-sex marriage debate.

Now, based on people's general attitudes about pizza, I'm not that surprised that at some point a pizza outfit got involved in this controversy.

Pizza: what is it about pizza? It's not that is just a popular food that has taken on so many shapes and forms (and in gay porn, sex with pizza delivery boy is a cliché) but there's something, I don't know, deeply psychosocial about the way we approach it in the United States. Quite amazing for a food that essentially began as a vegetarian “peasant” food, a simple dough with a simple sauce on it.

In the United States, pizza seems to be the center of so many social functions. Not just the obvious ones like the Superbowl Party, but diverse work and school functions. In fact, I remember pizza was often a bribe to keep the masses docile.

In elementary school, the promise of a pizza party was definitely held over our heads to promise good behavior. The good classes got pizza, but the bad classes got nothing. The really bad classes got to pull weeds outside.

When I ushered at benefit concerts in college, the ushers got pizza to ensure they were not served food only for the wealthy benefactors, which happened one year, creating a furor among the administration.

And at one notably condescending paternalistic place I worked at, the floor who got the people out in the least amount of time for the fire drill “won a pizza party.” Yes, pizza on paper plates, and you got your own soft drink from the vending machine. Thrillsville. Our floor didn't win.