There’s been a lot of palaver about a group of people allegedly being refused service in a Punch Taverns pub on the grounds of being gay. Now, obviously nobody should be turned away purely because of their sexual orientation, but I can’t help thinking there’s more to this story than meets the eye. The customers concerned were from the Labour Party’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) group. Might it be possible that some of them have a teeny chip on their shoulder and go around looking for offence where none is intended? Just because someone is gay doesn’t mean they’re incapable of behaving in an offensive and obnoxious manner. According to the report, “the incident stemmed from a customer taking offence at an LGBT banner.” It would be interesting to know what that particular banner said. And a licensee might entirely reasonably feel uneasy about a large and boisterous group suddenly descending on his pub regardless of who they were.
Obviously nobody should be turned away purely because of their sexual orientation, but it is fair game to turn away members of the Labour Party.
ReplyDeleteI remember years ago the landlord in my local ,well that was when I used to go to smoking pubs but I don't now as I can no longer find one,barred a couple of gays because they were snogging.
ReplyDeleteFair enough who want to see that !
The story is obviously getting quite a lot of play here in London. Seems Labour LGBT had booked a meal, so presumably they'd booked in that group name. A duty manager is supposed to have made the comment about not taking the booking if he'd known they were gay, after the altercation between the group and another customer. Punch's position seems to have moved in the past 48 hours, from 'we understand there was a disagreement' blabla to 'we are fully investigating this, we are committed to diversity, we are sorry if this customer experience...' blablabla.
ReplyDeletePathetically, a rainbow flag has magically appeared in the pub window since the story broke.
Maybe the pub had run out of Malibu and creme-de-menthe.
ReplyDeleteI know right on lefties can be annoying but this looks like a case of homophobia to me.
ReplyDeleteSurely the literal translation of homophobia is "fear of mankind"?
ReplyDeleteNo, you're getting your Greek and Latin mixed up.
ReplyDeleteThough I can't remember which is which in one of them 'homo' mean 'same' and in the other it mean 'man.
ReplyDeleteSo it's literaly "fear of the same" then?
ReplyDeleteI hope they were'nt smoking in
ReplyDeletea public area.
Just a mo
Has'nt the licensee the right to
refuse service without giving reason, so i've been told by
many landlords ,especially when
doing a recce with 20-30 Skinchavs
round the smartarse brasseries of
South Manchester.
"We dont serve your type in here"
end of story.
Good for Goose
"a customer taking offence at an LGBT banner"
ReplyDeleteThen the LGBT people are committing an offence under section 5 of the Public Order Act. I trust they had their collars felt...
“The incident stemmed from a customer taking offence at an LGBT banner.” Doesn’t really explain what happened. Was it just tucked under an LGBT members arm? Did the customer see it being paraded outside? Or, was it shoved up the customer’s arse? Perhaps we will never know. For many this is clearly an emotive subject, not sure why really. To quote from a poster that Stuart Maconie mentions in one of his recent books, “Some people are gay. Get over it”.
ReplyDelete“Might it be possible that some of them have a teeny chip on their shoulder and go around looking for offence where none is intended?” - Its possible, but in a world that is sadly still too is full of bigoted people the chances are that they probably didn’t. Too often you here a phrase along the lines of “I’m not prejudice/racist/homophobic but…”, which is always a dead giveaway that they are. I remember as a youth going into The Dog & Partridge in Bury St Eds with a few mates and being turfed out because we were ‘wearing t-shirts’. We weren’t rowdy and we’d been in before wearing t-shirts. The then landlord was a known right-wing nutter (that’s probably tautology), one of our party was black, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
I think the only conclusion that can be reached is that from the various reports it's impossible to tell what really happened. But it is naïve to assume that "victimhood junkies" always on the lookout for a racial or sexual slight don't exist in the current climate of political correctness - Commander Ali Dizaei can't be an isolated example.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree, Curmudgeon. It's am indication how powerful the gay lobby now is when you have Punch tying itself in knots trying to prove how PC they are."Co-operating with the police"? Why are they even involved?
ReplyDeleteTake away the gay angle: You have 100 non locals turning up at a busy pub. It appears one comment was made by a local and a row ensued. That would make it 100-1. If they had been football fans, who would be getting the blame? For all we know the deputy manager was merely trying to maintain the peace.
In a true, liberty and freedom loving society, anyone has the right whom to employ, serve and associate with regardless of nationality, race, sexual orientation.
ReplyDeleteIf people don't want to like people because they're black, Asian, French, Homosexual, Bisexual, Transexual (etc) then that's entirely their prerogative to do so. The state intervening in such matter is nothing but fascism I'm afraid to say. Personal choice and preference should never be questioned.
What we have seen in today's society is the situation where freewill has been utterly obliterated in order for the state to dictate how we all should live. This has ironically created a situation where people who were once NOT prejudice towards ethics and homosexuals now are. By forcing the issue upon people that they MUST accept minorities without prejudice, they have in fact CREATED prejudice that wasn't there.
I also disagree 100% with liberal slur words such as racist and homophobe. Just because you choose to associate with your own race and not that of others, certainly doesn't automatically mean you hate other races. Just because you disagree with homosexuality doesn't mean you have an 'irrational fear' of homosexuals.
Live and let live is what I say and do not force your opinions and beliefs upon others. Being quite a liberal, open minded youth 20 years ago, I moved to London and experienced multiculturalism and homosexuality on a huge scale. At first it was interesting but then I saw the overwhelming prejudice and demand for minority rule over the majority. It changed my perception altogether. It was there I saw the the ethnic minority continually shove their ethnicity into the faces of an indigenous majority, who frankly, couldn't give a sh*t who they were. The same I also saw for homosexuals, none moreso than annual Gay Pride marches, which to me are no different to Orange marches in Northern Ireland, who rub the Battle of the Boyne in the faces of Catholics. It's nothing about celebrating being homosexual, but all about "look at me, I'm a big, pink, Queen and a protected species within the west. If you disagree with me I'll haul you up on charges of homophobia!"
If you're homosexual you're homosexual. Get on with it. Stop broadcasting it and shoving it into the faces of heterosexuals all the time. There's no need to wander around with a banner, brandishing your sexuality. It's not needed. It's not needed at all.