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? |
People just looooove to self-segregate.
Gotta be better than Oz TV.
Ugh, Batman and Throbbin’ – it makes you wonder who pitches and who catches. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to a gay bar and pass out drunk and have my stool pushed in, so to speak.
A step in the right direction, the right direction being where we started out – a place where people freely choose who they personally associate with, without having others forced upon them in the name of statist ideology.
Anythng that works to dismantle PC is good news. Them ‘Strines show surprising good sense at times.
If only gay men are allowed in the establishment, there must be some sort of uhh….. entrance exam at the door!?
Perry
i wonder what the reaction would be if it was a regular club that has won the right to turn away gay men.
im all for equal rights but this is no longer about equal rights but is slowly becoming gay men having more rights.
#4 – Lauren – Seems like a step back on a slippery slope. How about I open a club that excludes black people, because I think its threatening to the white people trying to have a good time? Maybe you think thats a good idea?
lol gotta say this targetted ad results are cracking me up! hairy gay men click here? gay christians date here? too many choices.
#1
I agree
#7
ditto for me
I mean segregation is segregation isn’t it. Is there a good kind and a bad kind? Plus reading the judges decision quoted in the article she comes across as a little condescending to gay people to me. Sounds to me like the Hotel copped out and let the judge decide for them so they wouldn’t get sue. Exemptions to laws always smells like some had an inside track to a public official to me.
The only way you can legitimately “segregate” an establishment is to set the price high enough so that the lowlifes can’t afford to get in.
I’m straight but I’ve been in gay bars a few times. It was awkward (pee’ing next to a convincing transsexual in a hitched-up mini skirt was memorable) but no problem.
I guess I can understand why they want to ban straights if too many were there to treat the bar like a freak show.
#10 The only way you can legitimately “segregate” an establishment is to set the price high enough so that the lowlifes can’t afford to get in.
Goodness, what society do you travel in? Some place where privileged drunken frat boys don’t gay bash? Those rich jerky boys are the worst, in my observation.
I lived in a gay part of town and I got gay-bashed a couple of times by idiots who just assumed I was gay for being there. From the looks of their cars, they weren’t poor or even blue collar.
#4, right on!
#7, it is called freedom of association. Better to be free to have a club that excludes blacks AND be free to give them lots of bad publicity that to have the law say “you must allow everyone”.
As for the gay bar thing, well, as it turns out, I wish so many women would stop showing up at my local bar. Some are lesbians, some are straight (either fag hags or just to drink and feel “unthreatened”). But they always, always, always put a not talked about drag (pardon the expression) on things. When they are not present, it is indeed a joy to be in one small place in the world sans women.
As for straight men in a gay bar….there isn’t such a thing. They might “label” themselves straight, but as the saying goes, so is spaghetti until you heat it up.
DAve
#12 – Greg – I can understand that; but, you are talking about individuals acting disorderly and a bar/club would be in it’s rights to remove and ban those INDIVIDUALS. That does not give the establishment the right to ban an entire segment of the population due to the actions of some individuals.
I just love it when PCers get caught up in their own tangled crappola.
RBG
0. Damn, what’s a guy gonna do in Melbourne for fun on a Saturday night now?
Respond to the ad on this page for hairy gay men?
RBG
Cool.. It’s a move in the right direction. Back to when people were allowed to make their own personal preferences known.
Jeez, what’s with all this ‘PC” crap? When I was a kid my mommy taught me that good manners were fundamentally an agreed-upon way for people to be courteous to each other, so if you don’t know the rule, just treat other people as if they matter. Since when has simple courtesy, such as calling people what they want to be called, amounted to committing some sort of Being PC offense?
Once lawmakers get mixed into it – maybe they get tired of making lawas about private morality, medical science, and set-asides for rich people – common sense goes into the toilet. But until then, lighten up, people. It’s only about courtesy.
The gov’t has no right to treat anyone differently, deliver a different level of service, &c. That’s a given; you don’t see anyone defending that.
Put the gov;t also has no business judging my choices of who I associate with, or punishing me for not being “multicultural.” I may be a tolerant, open-minded person who loves everyone, and feels at home anywhere in the world, in the company of all kinds of people. That’s great. But no one has the right to tell me I HAVE to be that way, or whether that’s the “right” way to be or the “wrong” way.
If I should choose to find only the company of old white men, or Goth lesbians, or Lithuanian steamfitters to suit me, I demand the freedom to associate with them. MY CHOICE – right or wrong, moral or immoral, tolerant or intolerant as it may be – NOT the gov’t’s.
If black folk with Congolese roots, or teenage paraplegics, or badminton players who live in tents find comfort in being around others like themselves, what fucking business is it of mine? What gives me the right to force my way into their gatherings?
Answers: None, and Nothing.
Fuck this Marxist PC horseshit.
18. So you support organizations such as eHarmony, golf clubs, business groups, etc. and everyone’s courteous participation in the removal and exclusion of certain undesireable types of people from the premises because this politely makes the management and other participants more comfortable?
RBG
Freedom of association is a wonderful thing, and when I go to a supermarket or a bar or a restaurant, I’m not being forced to associate with anyone there. Don’t confuse being allowed in the same building to engage in commercial transactions with any violation of free association. It simply isn’t so. Opportunities for different associations are available but not forced as a result of patronizing the same establishment.
I can’t believe the people in Melbourne who want to exclude heterosexuals from their bar don’t see the apparent hypocrisy in their position, assuming they’ve ever insisted on being included somewhere themselves. People can always be removed or excluded based on behavior disruptive to the establishment — I believe we’ve all heard of “bouncers.” But the blanket assumption that heteros will automatically be disruptive is wrong both in principle and probably in fact. Plus, with gays in the majority at the bar, they have the upper hand to make gawking straights feel uncomfortable.
I’d predict that this attempt to discriminate commercially will be something that comes back to bite these gay people on the ass, which of course they might enjoy 😉
#20
Because there’s always someone yapping “Is that an exclusive club? IwantinIwantinIwantinIwantinIwantinIwantinIwantinIwantin! And if you don’t let me in I’ll sue!” And they just want to be in because they don’t let “people” like them in..
To all you people “slippery sloping” and “more rights for minority hypocrits” crying, please take note of the reality of this story which is hinted at in the last paragraph. I live in Melb. so have heard a bit more about this story. The club has stated they have no intention of blanket bans, entrance tests or similar. This particular club had become a regular stop for organised Bucks and Hens night tours who were only attending to “see the gays”. The club could not blanket turn these people away without exposing themselves to litigation by the tour operators who want to protect their access to the “zoo”
Don’t get hung up on the gay, it is a conveniently titilating but ultimately marginal fact in this. What was awarded was the right to select only patrons that are looking to have a good time WITH the other patrons, and reject those that want a good time AT THE EXPENSE OF the other patrons. Sex and orientation is only an indicator to the patrons intention in theis regard, and a pretty reliable one.
#23 MG – lol, we Americans love our “slippery slope” metaphor. I’ve heard that after a few more years of global warming, we may not have any more snow-covered hills for winter sledding, but at least we’ll still have our slippery slope. Please don’t take it away, if only for the sake of the children…
😉
23. I like this principle. Do you mind if we borrow it to help out with other realities such as eHarmony, US Homeland Security racial profiling, protest meetings, men’s clubs, gay parades, public court attendance, topless beaches, Christmas festivities, campaign speeches, the banning of gays from male change rooms, G8 meetings and other contentious public gatherings where “indicators” could be used to determine who may not be coming to have a good time with (read “think like or support”) the other patrons?
To quote a wise old man: “…the suit involved government and private companies – none of whom had “stolen” from us anything of immediate physical value. Just our civil liberties. ”
RBG
24. Yeah, who ever pays attention to legal precedents anyway?
RBG
Since you are laboring under a misconception, here’s a tiny hint: only the government can grant you or deny you civil liberties.
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.
Civil rights are unaffected when someone else doesn’t want you in their club; they are violated when you use the law to pry open the door of that club. That intolerable abridgement of the very principle of free association is a hallmark of a totalitarian society.
Oh, but wait! You KNOW that YOU’RE RIGHT, so fuck other peoples’ rights! Totalitarianism is OK, since it’s in the noble cause of State-mandated “diversity”, which is more important to
CommunistsPCers than “freedom.” If people won’t accept what you – being so noble and morally superior and all – have “defined” for them as proper and “multicultural” and “inclusive,” then simply coöpt the power of the State to ram your beliefs down everyone else’s throats – at gunpoint – while distracting them from noticing their loss of freedom with high-minded-sounding propaganda.Putin is busy working on turning Russia back into what is was before – a place for people who think like you. Soon you will be able to move there and enjoy the kind of government you’re promoting here.
I might’ve said this before: Fuck that Marxist PC horseshit.
28. Deep breaths, LtG.
Para 1: Civil Liberties: “Will they be imposed upon us unilaterally by government officials and agencies? Or will appropriate accommodations be worked out with the advice and cooperation of civil libertarians? The latter approach is preferable to the former. ” Alan Dershowitz
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i05/05b00901.htm
Para 2: Completely agreed. Now, who is talking about organizations of private citizens? Not me. Not all men or women’s clubs are private.
RBG
Lairen just because I enjoy reading your rhetoric…How do you square your staement that it is only a violation of civil liberties when they try to pry open the door to the Judges stement that she was granting them an exemption to the law surrounding equal rights…in effect you may discriminate in this case. I still think this is more a case of some getting a favor from a judge to ward of a lawsuit more than anything else.
Guess I out to check my spelling first-ahem- Lauren…there we go.