Australian Gay Hotel Wins Right To Ban Straight Guests

Jan 23, 2006
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The Peel Hotel in Melbourne, Australia

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The hotel's rules warn guests that it is geared towards gay men

An Australian hotel catering for homosexuals has won the right to ban heterosexuals from its bars so as to provide a safe and comfortable venue for gay men.

In what is believed to be a first for Australia, the Victorian state civil and administrative tribunal ruled last week that the Peel Hotel in the southern city of Melbourne could exclude patrons based on their sexuality. Australia's equal opportunity laws prevent people being discriminated against based on race, religion or sexuality.

But Peel Hotel owner Tom McFeely said the ruling was necessary to provide gay men with a non-threatening atmosphere to freely express their sexuality.
"If I can limit the number of heterosexuals entering the Peel, then that helps me keep the safe balance," he told Australian radio on Monday.
McFeely said that, while the hotel welcomed everyone, its gay clientele had expressed discomfort over the number of heterosexuals and lesbians coming to the venue in the past year. He said there were more than 2,000 venues in Melbourne that catered to heterosexuals, but his hotel was the only one marketing itself predominantly to gay men.

Victoria's state human rights commission backed the ruling, saying it was in line with equal opportunity guidelines defending the rights of groups subject to discrimination.
Commission chief Helen Szoke said the hotel's gay clientele had experienced harassment and violence. "(They) also have felt as though they've been like a zoo exhibit with big groups of women on hens' parties coming to the club," Szoke told reporters. McFeely told the radio that the hotel had received homophobic telephone calls since news of the ruling was made public.




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Yep totally agree, didn't mean any offence me just being sarcastic cos it feels yet again the world has gone that little bit more mad! At some point you can guarentee there will be some sort of retaliation and so the cycle of discrimination continues.
 
:shrugs: So hypothetically surely the hotel next door could do the same - ban homosexuals - of course not that would be discrimination.

Well, if gay men were harassing the straight bar next door or going there for novelty, then I think the business owner would be justified in banning them in order to protect his customers and (by extension) his profits. I don't really think that what the bar is doing is that absurd. I agree that if homophobia wasn't an issue to begin with, then this wouldn't even be discussed, but unfortunately that's not the reality we live in.
 
Banning tourists or disruptive straight men and women is understandable, but banning any straight person...this is definitely discrimmination. Sure, weightwatchers is for people who need to lose weight, but they don't ban regular weight people from going in. Even a church doesn't ban non-religious people.
 
At some point you can guarentee there will be some sort of retaliation and so the cycle of discrimination continues.

Yes, and so it goes. The same argument (that it would not be necessary if not for prior discrimination) is used for AA, which is formulated as a corrective measure. It would not be necessary if minority groups were not discriminated against in the past, somewhat like this situation. But then the question becomes, how much can these corrective measures be allowed to resemble that which they were enacted to counteract?

But the bigger danger (which is always obscured) is that these measures compound the differences between the historically oppressed and the non, leaving many members of the non to believe that there really is, after all, fundamental, unsurmountable differences between them and the historically oppressed. Just like before, when the oppression was mainstream and fundamental differences were used to justify that oppression, fundamental differences again become mainstream. Yes, it is a cycle.
 
^^

I don't understand how straight customers would need to be "protected" from gay customers? They aren't sex predators!

That's totally not what I meant. The article mentioned how the grounds for banning straight customers was that some of them harassed the gay patrons (through homophobic remarks, I'm assuming), or attended the bar for the same reasons people go to freak shows or circuses. My point is that, if gay customers were going into the straight bar next door and doing the same thing, then a ban wouldn't be as absurd as riffraff suggested.
 
That's totally not what I meant. The article mentioned how the grounds for banning straight customers was that some of them harassed the gay patrons (through homophobic remarks, I'm assuming), or attended the bar for the same reasons people go to freak shows or circuses. My point is that, if gay customers were going into the straight bar next door and doing the same thing, then a ban wouldn't be as absurd as riffraff suggested.

Understood! :tup:
 
ummm...while I dont necessarily "agree" with gay people I definently dont believe that they should be harassed and threatened so I think the owner did the rightful thing.
 
As a gay oriented hotel, I doubt heterosexuals would be entering for any reason other than blatant curiousity or other not so good reasons. However I feel a straight, all-out banning is bordering on the extreme. Though it did bring out the ugly side of the homophobics.

As this is a decision not affecting straight males/females greatly, I think it is not infringing on anybodys rights. This isn't the first time this has happened apparently, my ex-lit teacher told me she was turned away from the Moulin Rouge when it was gay night!
 
Homosexual men are great!! Hell, a lot of times they're better than straight men :P

I don't understand why some people are prejudice against them. Are men so cocky to think that all gay guys want them? Gay people have standards too!