No Harm, No … Homophobia at Houston Bar

The weekend’s guerrilla gay bar fracas in Houston — where a mob of homos descended upon Union Bar and Lounge to “turn it gay” for a night — has been resolved in a lovely worded statement. While the stunt’s organizers claimed homophobia when the bar wouldn’t let in all of its attendees, the bar insisted there was no discrimination at work, just a capacity issue. (Organizers made a reservation for 50 people; more than that showed up, and the bar’s fire code prohibits more than 114 people.) And now, resolution!

Reads the statement:

Due to a miscommunication between management of Union Bar and Lounge and the door staff, we acknowledge that actions by the door staff caused an unintended perception of discriminatory actions towards the gay and lesbian community. We wholeheartedly did not want or intend for this to happen. We also acknowledge that this unintended action caused hurt and bad feeling within the gay and lesbian community towards Union Bar and it staff. We also extend this apology to all of our regular gay and lesbian customers who may have been hurt by this misunderstanding.

We deeply appreciate Union Bar and Lounge coming to us to clear up this incident,” said Kris Banks, president of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus. “We accept Union Bar’s explanation that miscommunication was at the heart of the problem. We understand that there was no discriminatory intent, but circumstances led to a strong perception that we were excluded because of our sexual orientation.

Our community is sensitive to discrimination, an understandable sentiment given the unfinished nature of our civil rights movement. Discrimination still exists, and should be addressed with legislation like House Bill 2215. We were happy to hear that the owners of Union Bar and Lounge are supporters of this legislation 100%.

We are happy for resolution and call for the GLBT community to move on and continue working for equality. We urge the community to cease negative bombardment, especially highly inappropriate harassment and threats.