MELBOURNE, Australia — A gay bar has won the right to turn away heterosexuals and even lesbians to provide a non-threatening atmosphere for the men partying inside.
A tribunal in Australia’s southern Victoria state granted Melbourne’s Peel Hotel an exemption to equal rights laws, saying it was needed to prevent “sexually based insults and violence” aimed at the pub’s patrons.
In her findings, the tribunal’s deputy president, Cate McKenzie, said Monday that to allow large numbers of straight men and women and lesbians into the bar could “undermine or destroy” the convivial atmosphere that the Peel Hotel sought to create for gay men.
McKenzie said there was evidence some straight patrons were going to the bar to use the predominantly gay customers as a form of entertainment.
| Damn, what’s a guy gonna do in Melbourne for fun on a Saturday night now? |
#28, Lauren,
Being denied entry into organizations of other private citizens, by those very citizens, is no infringement upon your freedom or rights; but the government enactment of any law which permits YOU to force your entry into THEIR organizations IS a violation of THEIR civil liberties.
Bullshit !!! From this quote, you favor the legal racial separation in schools, transportation, the military, and major league sports.
A business is never totally alienated from government. All businesses must adhere to government regulations for the good of society. That includes everything from involuntary servitude to dumping poisonous wastes in the water to selling dangerous products. A bar is a business and the government has every right to decide that it is not in the best interest of society to discriminate based upon whatever identifier it chooses. History has given us good reason to regulate discrimination in public places.
Invite whomever you wish to your hovel. Serve whatever ethnic offerings you care to. Rant to your friends how ugly white people are. That is all fine and good. If you don’t include me on your list, that would be just peachy. Just don’t tell me I am barred from a public place simply because you don’t like my sex, race, color, nationality, … Your hovel is your home, the public place isn’t.
I know you liked Macs, but I don’t understand your infantile hatred towards Personal Computers. As well, I am unaware of the significance Groucho, Harpo, or Chico have with personal computers.
BTW, do you think this ruling would prevent me from joining the organized lesbian night tours?
RBG
What the…?
26 for 24
27 for 25
Now where’s my “Counting For Dummies” book?
Just to clarify… ANY and EVERY company, organization, association that receives ANY form of gov’t aid or assistance should be required to comply with the very same anti-discrimination statutes that the gov’t is required to observe.
Also, any entity which provides public services or contracts with the gov’t should likewise be bound by those laws. Schools are a public service, even private ones; the military is a branch of gov’t; transportation is also a public service.
But 100% privately owned businesses which receive no gov’t funds of any kind for any purpose, and individuals acting in their capacity as private citizens (no gov’t officials allowed) should be free of any gov’t intervention in their operation – obviously this means lawful businesses, doing lawful things – Restaurants, bars, hotels, motels, rental housing, medical practices, law firms. banks, wholesale and retail sales – these all should be free to enrol or trade with anyone they see fit, or to reject anyone, as customers, members, buyers, tenants, whatever.
Civil rights laws aside:
So you’d have no problem with signs hung in the windows of businesses that said “No Jews Allowed”; “Blacks enter here”, and a hundred other inhuman possibilities? Or is there some misunderstanding here?
RBG