Posted on 05/27/2007 4:28:27 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
A Melbourne gay bar has been granted an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act in a landmark ruling which will allow security to refuse entry to heterosexuals.
The owners of Collingwood's Peel Hotel, which came under fire in April for promoting a gay Anzac Day party, successfully argued to the state planning tribunal that banning heterosexuals from the club would prevent "sexually based insults and violence".
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal granted the controversial powers to the club last week, the Herald Sun reports.
VCAT deputy president Cate McKenzie claimed that allowing straight men and women into the club would defeat the purpose of the venue.
"This would undermine or destroy the atmosphere which the company wishes to create," McKenzie said.
"Sometimes heterosexual groups and lesbian groups insult and deride and are even physically violent towards the gay male patrons."
McKenzie said some straight women came to the club because they found the gay patrons entertaining.
"To regard the gay male patrons of the venue as providing an entertainment or spectacle to be stared at, as one would at an animal at a zoo, devalues and dehumanises them," she said.
"(This exemption) seeks to give gay men a space in which they may, without inhibition, meet, socialise and express physical attraction to each other in a non-threatening atmosphere."
A spokeswoman for the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Lobby Group told the Herald Sun that gay men at the Peel had been made to feel like "zoo animals".
"This exemption was not sought to exclude members of the community but to try to maintain a safe space for men to meet," the spokeswoman said.
"It's sad that members of our community would have to go to the VCAT to preserve their rights.
"This is one of the only free venues with live music in the area, so certainly some people may feel a bit unhappy about the decision."
Turnabout is fair play.
Remember, gay rights doesn’t mean special rights.
Try to ban sexual deviants from your establishment and you’ll think the whole world just fell on you.
I only wish we could do the same...
How do they check for sexual orientation?
But, but isn’t that racial discrimination?
How do they check for “gayness”?
How do they decide whos who?
It reminds me of the stories from the late 60's of guys faking homosexuality to escape the draft. Proof was required, but only an extreme few provided that proof.
How do you check?
Melbourne , Australia
Peel Dance Bar (The)
Cruisy gay bar with fun dance floor action
Corner of Peel Street And Wellington Street
Melbourne
3066
VIC
Nearest Train Station Collingwood train station (Epping/Hurstbridge lines); tram 86, 87
Neighborhood Inner East
Opening Hours 7p-1a W-Th, 7p-3a F-Sa
The Peel is one of Melbourne’s most popular gay venues, located in the heart of the “Northside district”, as the Fitzroy/Collingwood gay patch is sometimes called. The dance floor might be small, but competition for space (and attention) is fierce. A cross-section of gay men, of all ages and interests, dance until dawn to the latest Whitney and Jennifer Lopez remixes, while Sunday sees the packed house sweating to eighties hits for the ever popular retro night. Dark and comfortable, it gets even darker and more relaxed for regular theme parties, which you will normally see advertised on posters in the club.
Credit Cards not Accepted
I don’t see what the problem is with this... you should be allowed to reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Of course, if you try that in the USA, you will probably be sued :(
It’s been on the radio here this morning. How do they check?
Well, one woman was refused entry because... wait for it... she was wearing high heels! Not butch enough, I guess.
So not only do you have to be gay to get into this pub, apparently you have to fit the gay stereotypes.
No non-poofters!
“Sometimes heterosexual groups and lesbian groups insult and deride and are even physically violent towards the gay male patrons.”
LOL. Is this a misprint?—”Sometimes ...lesbian groups insult and deride and are even physically violent towards the gay male patrons.”
The dykes beat up the fags? LOLOLOLOL.
It reminds me of the stories from the late 60’s of guys faking homosexuality to escape the draft. <<
Yeah...Most became Congress critters...
Whattya call a gay bar w/ no seats? A Fruit Stand!
If you flinch when they grope your crotch you must be one of those rotten "straights".
It is called gaydar, it is a look or one can sense it. My Husband always is amused by it - He says: how do you know????? I say - sweetie it is the look.
Seems like a perversion of justice to me.
Oh, dear...I won’t be allowed into a gay bar. Wherever shall I go? Whatever shall I do?
Frankly, I’m pretty sure I’d survive the humiliation.
Turnabout fair game, is exactly what I was thinking!
It's a pub. A Public House. That distinction is important in Australian law - it's not just another name for a bar here. Private clubs in Australia have long had the write to refuse entry to people on whatever grounds they want, but there is a distinction between a private club and a public house. A public house can bar individuals on the grounds of their behaviour, and must do so in certain circumstances - but a whole class of people should not be excluded - until today.
Ask 'em if they enjoyed the new movie Brokeback spidy about a gay arachnid.
Me too Cheyenne, but on the other had, who would want to go into one of “their bars”
Yeah, sure.
But, but... can they SMOKE in the gay bar? That’s the most important part! An owner of PRIVATE PROPERTY can (and should) be allowed to state who they want as customers, should they NOT?!?!?
Why WOULD a straight person go to a gay bar anyway? And why would a non-smoker go somewhere where smoking is allowed when they already HAVE a hundred other choices? And why don’t our local non-smokers now FLOCK to our local bars now that smoking is banned? The State Government assured us that they would! Business would triple if we only banned smoking!
It boggles the mind...
*SMIRK*
“It is called gaydar, it is a look or one can sense it.”
Long time ago I was travelin on Air Force business. A friend and I decided to go find a bar to play pool. Neither of us new the city. We finally found one bar that had pool advertised. As we were walking in two very attractive ladies came out. Fortunately their gaydar was working as they told us it was a gay bar.
Let’s see, now heteros can ban gays from their bars also? Just watch the gays scream the first time a straight bar bans queers from their premises. They should be careful what they wish for, it might come back to bite them in the a**.
Thanks for the info, natural.
I figured this was an infringement on law abiding citizens rights.
Later pingout.
(non-violent) Individual moral judgment is slowly being criminalized in the name of some bastardized form of "civil rights". Part of the continued march from liberty (where the government endorses negative rights, leaving positive rights to be individually secured without government interference) to Marxist hedonism (where the government endorses positive rights, always at the expense of negative rights).
Of course if you want to be left alone, reverse the batteries.
What did one gay say to another at a bar? “May I push your stool in for you?”
A good decision—provided it applies reciprocally and equally to straight bars, male-only bars, female-only bars, atheist-only bars, christian-only bars, etc.
Every new member might be required to engage in an, ummmm, initiation, ummmm, “ritual.”
Whattya call a bouncer at a gay bar? A Flame Thrower!
The bar owner should be free to decide who enters the bar, gay or straight.
Gay bars require fewer barstools. Turned upside down one can fit four gays to a barstool.
Do you turn the gays upside down or the barstools?
My guess is that there won’t be a lot of straights changing their plans for the evening.
Uh, do heteros usually want go to gay bars?
GO TO THE LINK MATE,THIS 5-4 MARINE HAS BEEN CHASEING HIS 6 FOOT BLOND BRIDE ALONG ALL WKND,SHE’S SLEEPING ON THE SETTEE!
Oh! Then I get it!
Actually, if this keeps straight women out of gay bars, all the better. And it should. If it doesn’t, there’s your discrimination/lawsuit.
I don’t get the kindred spirit between gay men and some straight women, but it’s enough to annoy me. When you have friends of friends showing up with their gay boy in tote, it becomes excrutiatingly annoying. In inevitably, any gay male who adopts a “fag hag” (hey, that’s what they call them) is a queen beyond belief.
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