Asshole.
My friend Jake posted this on MySpace. It happened to his friend. Read it, pass it along to Austinites, and DO NOT GO TO SAPPHIRE ON 6TH.
It takes a lot to get me angry, but this bartended succeeded.
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NO FAGS ALLOWED: "Sapphire" on 6th discriminates against homosexuals.
Last night I experienced my first real brush with discrimination. I suppose that living in Austin minimizes your chances of getting blatantly profiled, and until now I've been rather lucky to have never experienced this. Still, it IS a college town filed with fratboy assholes, and fratboy assholes + alcohol = "OMG, fags."
The story is as follows:
We head downtown for a few drinks, stopping at various places and ordering a few shots. Matt (my boyfriend) and I show slight signs of public affection at worst met with a lingering gaze from a few people, perhaps just making sure that they were seeing things properly. And that's usually how it goes. For the most part, people from Austin are used to seeing gays doing their thing and to give anything more than a casual look would be the equivalent of a guy in Hong Kong giving the "exaggerated cough" to a nearby smoker. It's like: "Dude, you live in Hong Kong. EVERYONE SMOKES."
But whatever. I understand the world is still filled with idiots who insist that "being gay is a choice" or whatnot, and despite how incorrect that viewpoint is, they are allowed to have it.
EXT. SAPPHIRE BAR - NIGHT
Yes folks, the Sapphire (please remember the name) wasn't even our intended destination. We pass by the door and the bouncer shouts at us: "ONE DOLLAR WELLS."
One dollar wells? Shit! Sounds good to me.
We enter the bar (all five of us) and immediately double their clientelle. A popular bar, apparently.
As the drinks get consumed, the dancing spirit enters some of the girls. As any female will tell you, the nice thing about gays is that they love to dance, ESPECIALLY when they get drunk. So, I start dancing with one of the girls, then Matt starts dancing with her too. Then the girl sits down and Matt and I dance a little by ourselves.
Cool? Cool. That's sorta how these things should go.
We return to the bar and sip our drinks for a bit. Then there is another round of dancing, only this time when Matt and I decide to dance solo, the bartender snaps his fingers, grabbing my attention:
"Hey, you guys need to cut that shit out."
Keep in mind: we weren't booty grinding or anything. It was nothing more than the light contact dancing you'd see at any bar or club. If we were full on dry-humping, making out, etc., one could make the case that no-one should be allowed to do that in a decent establishment, gay or straight, a sentiment I understand and even agree with. But this was blatant discrimination, no bones about it.
Now, as a card carrying Libertarian, I recognize his right to refuse service on his own property. Just as I don't approve of the smoking ban for similar reasons, I'm not going to demand that he allow us to continue dancing if he doesn't want us to.
That said...
I'm not going to give this asshole any more of my money. As an analytical creature, I tried to understand the logic behind essentially asking 5 of the 8 people in your bar to leave. Certainly we're not going to stick around in a bar that just told us that the homosexuals can't dance.
Let me repeat that in big, bold letters:
SAPPHIRE DOESN'T ALLOW HOMOSEXUALS TO DANCE IN THEIR BAR.
I urge you all to spread the news. You don't need to be a hairy-armpitted flag burner to see the obvious wrong in this situation. Just as they exercised their right to refuse service, I am now exercising my right to free speech and I implore you to do the same.
PLEASE DO NOT FREQUENT SAPPHIRE, AS THEY BLATANTLY DISCRIMINATE AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS. PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO AVOID THIS PLACE AS WELL.
Again, make no mistake: this WAS discrimination.
"But Austin, you know that frat guys are their main clientelle and frat guys don't want to see a bunch of dudes dancing together."
Oh, really? Yes, you're right. SAPPHIRE sounds like a regular macho-magnet. Pardon me for assuming that a bar named after a sparkly blue gem wouldn't attract the football and beer types. It's not like the place was called "The Pigskin" or something. I understand the concept of appropriate context, but again: we're dealing with a bar called "Sapphire," here. They may as well have called it "The Blue Dildo."
False advertising aside, telling one homo that he can't dance in your bar is like telling all homos they can't dance in your bar. And that's like telling every single girl at UT that they can't dance in your bar. And no girls = no frat guys dancing in your bar. And...well...that just about covers every demographic you could hope to hit. Maybe that wasn't the best idea on his part.
Also, I'd like to point out that the "scaring off customers" reasoning is the same applied during the NO COLOREDS ALLOWED era of American history. You don't need to be a genius to understand the obvious similarity here. "People just haven't come around yet," is not an acceptable excuse. Period.
Needless to say, Matt and Alisha are pissed off enough to have a few words with the bartender.
"Is dancing allowed in your club?" she asks. The bartender replies, using some rather fey hand gestures:
"You and him can dance, but they can't dance together," pointing to me and Matt. At this point, I roll my eyes. What an asshole. It's one thing to politely explain your reasoning, apologize and perhaps offer to pay for a round of one dollar wells since, no doubt, the offended party will leave soon enough on their own. Five dollars seems like an awful cheap price for damage control.
But no, this had to erupt into an argument. I can say, with a totally objective eye, that the bartender had something a bit more than the interest of his bar in mind. The word "homophobic" certainly leaps to mind, and while I've never been a big fan of that mostly meaningless word, it was on full display here.
All said and done, drinks flew, glasses broke, bartenders shoved and we were ejected from the bar. Certainly it was one of those situations where "I don't know who started what," but it was clear that there was a give and take. We weren't just a bunch of drunk tools causing a ruckus. The bartender was very much inciting a reaction, assumedly on purpose.
In the process, one of our friends' lip got cut open. Aside from having a purse thrown at him (full force, mind you; this was no ginger handing off), Matt was then kicked in the chest through the fucking window as he called to Mai Lee asking if she was alright.
Completely unnecessary. Had the whole situation not been mired in scratches and bloody lips, the above incidents (which occurred far after the "fight" was over) would have easily qualified as assault. Unfortunately the cop informed us that filing assault charges would push the bar owners to do the same and everyone would get dragged into a game of he said-she said.
In the end, they just wanted us to "go away." Mmhmm. I bet they did.
Being too frazzled to really consider the legal options, we decide it's best just to cut our losses and spread the word about the homophobic institution that is SAPPHIRE. Which I'm doing now.
Once again, for those of you who just skip to the end:
SAPPHIRE IS A HOMOPHOBIC INSTITUTION THAT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS.
PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW NOT TO FREQUENT THEIR ESTABLISHMENT.
'Nuff said.
--------------------------------
It takes a lot to get me angry, but this bartended succeeded.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
NO FAGS ALLOWED: "Sapphire" on 6th discriminates against homosexuals.
Last night I experienced my first real brush with discrimination. I suppose that living in Austin minimizes your chances of getting blatantly profiled, and until now I've been rather lucky to have never experienced this. Still, it IS a college town filed with fratboy assholes, and fratboy assholes + alcohol = "OMG, fags."
The story is as follows:
We head downtown for a few drinks, stopping at various places and ordering a few shots. Matt (my boyfriend) and I show slight signs of public affection at worst met with a lingering gaze from a few people, perhaps just making sure that they were seeing things properly. And that's usually how it goes. For the most part, people from Austin are used to seeing gays doing their thing and to give anything more than a casual look would be the equivalent of a guy in Hong Kong giving the "exaggerated cough" to a nearby smoker. It's like: "Dude, you live in Hong Kong. EVERYONE SMOKES."
But whatever. I understand the world is still filled with idiots who insist that "being gay is a choice" or whatnot, and despite how incorrect that viewpoint is, they are allowed to have it.
EXT. SAPPHIRE BAR - NIGHT
Yes folks, the Sapphire (please remember the name) wasn't even our intended destination. We pass by the door and the bouncer shouts at us: "ONE DOLLAR WELLS."
One dollar wells? Shit! Sounds good to me.
We enter the bar (all five of us) and immediately double their clientelle. A popular bar, apparently.
As the drinks get consumed, the dancing spirit enters some of the girls. As any female will tell you, the nice thing about gays is that they love to dance, ESPECIALLY when they get drunk. So, I start dancing with one of the girls, then Matt starts dancing with her too. Then the girl sits down and Matt and I dance a little by ourselves.
Cool? Cool. That's sorta how these things should go.
We return to the bar and sip our drinks for a bit. Then there is another round of dancing, only this time when Matt and I decide to dance solo, the bartender snaps his fingers, grabbing my attention:
"Hey, you guys need to cut that shit out."
Keep in mind: we weren't booty grinding or anything. It was nothing more than the light contact dancing you'd see at any bar or club. If we were full on dry-humping, making out, etc., one could make the case that no-one should be allowed to do that in a decent establishment, gay or straight, a sentiment I understand and even agree with. But this was blatant discrimination, no bones about it.
Now, as a card carrying Libertarian, I recognize his right to refuse service on his own property. Just as I don't approve of the smoking ban for similar reasons, I'm not going to demand that he allow us to continue dancing if he doesn't want us to.
That said...
I'm not going to give this asshole any more of my money. As an analytical creature, I tried to understand the logic behind essentially asking 5 of the 8 people in your bar to leave. Certainly we're not going to stick around in a bar that just told us that the homosexuals can't dance.
Let me repeat that in big, bold letters:
SAPPHIRE DOESN'T ALLOW HOMOSEXUALS TO DANCE IN THEIR BAR.
I urge you all to spread the news. You don't need to be a hairy-armpitted flag burner to see the obvious wrong in this situation. Just as they exercised their right to refuse service, I am now exercising my right to free speech and I implore you to do the same.
PLEASE DO NOT FREQUENT SAPPHIRE, AS THEY BLATANTLY DISCRIMINATE AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS. PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO AVOID THIS PLACE AS WELL.
Again, make no mistake: this WAS discrimination.
"But Austin, you know that frat guys are their main clientelle and frat guys don't want to see a bunch of dudes dancing together."
Oh, really? Yes, you're right. SAPPHIRE sounds like a regular macho-magnet. Pardon me for assuming that a bar named after a sparkly blue gem wouldn't attract the football and beer types. It's not like the place was called "The Pigskin" or something. I understand the concept of appropriate context, but again: we're dealing with a bar called "Sapphire," here. They may as well have called it "The Blue Dildo."
False advertising aside, telling one homo that he can't dance in your bar is like telling all homos they can't dance in your bar. And that's like telling every single girl at UT that they can't dance in your bar. And no girls = no frat guys dancing in your bar. And...well...that just about covers every demographic you could hope to hit. Maybe that wasn't the best idea on his part.
Also, I'd like to point out that the "scaring off customers" reasoning is the same applied during the NO COLOREDS ALLOWED era of American history. You don't need to be a genius to understand the obvious similarity here. "People just haven't come around yet," is not an acceptable excuse. Period.
Needless to say, Matt and Alisha are pissed off enough to have a few words with the bartender.
"Is dancing allowed in your club?" she asks. The bartender replies, using some rather fey hand gestures:
"You and him can dance, but they can't dance together," pointing to me and Matt. At this point, I roll my eyes. What an asshole. It's one thing to politely explain your reasoning, apologize and perhaps offer to pay for a round of one dollar wells since, no doubt, the offended party will leave soon enough on their own. Five dollars seems like an awful cheap price for damage control.
But no, this had to erupt into an argument. I can say, with a totally objective eye, that the bartender had something a bit more than the interest of his bar in mind. The word "homophobic" certainly leaps to mind, and while I've never been a big fan of that mostly meaningless word, it was on full display here.
All said and done, drinks flew, glasses broke, bartenders shoved and we were ejected from the bar. Certainly it was one of those situations where "I don't know who started what," but it was clear that there was a give and take. We weren't just a bunch of drunk tools causing a ruckus. The bartender was very much inciting a reaction, assumedly on purpose.
In the process, one of our friends' lip got cut open. Aside from having a purse thrown at him (full force, mind you; this was no ginger handing off), Matt was then kicked in the chest through the fucking window as he called to Mai Lee asking if she was alright.
Completely unnecessary. Had the whole situation not been mired in scratches and bloody lips, the above incidents (which occurred far after the "fight" was over) would have easily qualified as assault. Unfortunately the cop informed us that filing assault charges would push the bar owners to do the same and everyone would get dragged into a game of he said-she said.
In the end, they just wanted us to "go away." Mmhmm. I bet they did.
Being too frazzled to really consider the legal options, we decide it's best just to cut our losses and spread the word about the homophobic institution that is SAPPHIRE. Which I'm doing now.
Once again, for those of you who just skip to the end:
SAPPHIRE IS A HOMOPHOBIC INSTITUTION THAT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS.
PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW NOT TO FREQUENT THEIR ESTABLISHMENT.
'Nuff said.
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