Gays these days! First an Australian bar fights for – and wins – the right to bar straight folk and lesbians, now a Canadian bar’s under fire for giving a woman the boot.
Audrey Vachon stepped into Montreal’s Bar le Stud (seriously?) for a quick drink with her father, but left after a staffer told her they don’t welcome women. Needless to say, Vachon didn’t welcome the news:
On the spot I didn’t believe it, I thought it was a bad joke. I didn’t say a word until I’d left. I was too shocked. I was embarrassed, I was humiliated, I felt guilty that I’d even gone there, like I’d done something wrong.
Now Vachon’s doing the right thing: she’s filed a complaint with Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal.
It’s understandable that gay men want a space of their own, it’s an entirely unproductive practice. How can we fight for civil rights when we’re not willing to share the wealth. But that’s just our opinion….
Paul Raposo
“How can we fight for civil rights when we’re not willing to share the wealth”
I don’t believe the straight people who go to gay bars will be any more friendly to our equality than the straight people who go pride parades are.
Many people who view us as a spectacle, rather than as people, are the same people who either have no trouble denying us equal rights, or are too apathetic to care. And many of these people are those who go to gay bars and pride parades.
To many they will figure we have our own bars and parades, so what more do we want. We’re already “free.”
“Ms. Vachon, who begins studying administration at junior college this year, filed a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission, saying she’d been the victim of discrimination.
She invoked the same section of the provincial Charter that was created to defend the rights of homosexuals in 1977, when Quebec became the first jurisdiction in Canada to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
‘If I respect the rights of gays, then they should respect my rights, too,’ Ms. Vachon said in an interview yesterday.”
That doesn’t sound like a pro-gay woman, but a harpy out to make a name of herself. “If” she respects our rights. I think there is more to this, than just an upset woman.
“Her father, psychologist Gilles Vachon, protested that such discrimination is illegal, to which the server shrugged, explaining he didn’t make the rules.”
This looks more political than anything else.
Paul Raposo
Even more from the “pro-gay” pair:
“Audrey Vachon, 20, said she has never felt singled out the way she was on that day.’I’ve frequented other places in the Village … and it’s the first time I’ve ever come up against this kind of closed-mindedness. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever felt discriminated against.'”
And her wonderful father:
“‘Here we are in a liberal country confronted by people who have used the charter of rights to assert their rights against discrimination, and who are now discriminating against others.
‘I would never presume to discriminate against a gay person. Why should this be allowed to happen to my daughter?’ asked Vachon. ‘I was angry when this happened. We should probably have stayed and forced them to call the police to remove us.'”
This is about politics, pure and simple.
Paul Raposo
Still more:
“”I could barely believed it,” said Audrey, who immediately went home to consult the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
For someone so distraught, she seemed to move pretty quick to begin the complain process.
“‘That some establishments prefer to serve men, that’s fine,” she says. “But to prevent the presence of women, that bothers me.'”
So, we can have men only gay bars, but we cannot ban women?
“Audrey stressed that Article 10 of the Quebec Charter was amended in 1977 to prevent sexual discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and that ironically she was basing her complaint relying on the same article of law.”
Not ironic, methodical and predetermined no doubt.
“‘I’m scandalized!'” she said of being treated this way by ‘a community which has suffered discrimination in the past.'”
How dare we want to keep a minority–which makes up 52% of the population–out of our bars!
Sartoris
It makes no sense that this woman in Montreal feels entitled to be served at a bar like LeStud. Gay men don’t exist to entertain straight women. The bar’s policy may be discrimination under the law, but there is nothing ethically wrong gay men wanting to preserve cultural spaces beyond the reach of heterosexual authority. THe fact that Ms. Vachon and her father feel “accepting” of gay is beside they point–they act as if gay culture should be all about THEM, a if we’re a bunch of pathetic urchins waiting for a pat on the head from “accepting” straights.
As a gay man I consider myself an absolut equal to all straights and therefore their acceptance doesn’t concern me–they don’t have the moral authority to approve or disapprove of equals. So the real issue in Montreal is that hyper-privileged straight girl has been told that there is one small place in the world that doesn’t revolve around her, and she’s behaving like a spoiled child about it.