Brickbat: Going Gay

Victor Moussa / Dreamstime

In London, the Tower Hamlets council has given developers the go ahead for a project that will include offices and luxury apartments but only if it also includes a gay bar. The bar must stay open at least 12 years, and officials say the government must be involved in the decision about who gets to rent the space and will send an inspector to make sure it is gay enough. Council members say they are concerned LGBT clubs across the city are closing and this particular site once housed a gay pub.

Comments

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

"...bottoms would be tops if the chance were theirs..."

-Victor Hugo

[IceTrey]

Insanity.

[IceTrey]

Ha 420!

[BestUsedCarSales]

Maybe LGBT people don't want to go to special bars so much anymore. Regardless, this feels patronizing.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

Well, if it doesn't patronize, it won't make its money back, now will it?

[colorblindkid]

Personally, my boyfriend and I stay far away the hell from gay bars/clubs. Hard to find one without people doing it in stalls and shirtless making out at the bar. I walk in and see every single negative stereotype about gays and just weep for humanity.

[Cynical Asshole]

So I take it you're kind of like Willem Dafoe's character in Boondock Saints?

[Libertarian]

Excellent point. The culture war is just about over on this subject, and regular bars are much more open than they were 50 years ago. That's progress. But the Left still sees a problem and wants segregation. It's like the gerrymandering for alcoholics.

[Jen G.]

There are only two types of bars - the kind you go to hang out and the kind you go to hook up. The latter's role is being replaced by apps and the former have become accepting of anyone with money. Typical that progressives don't take vanishing gay bars as the culture win that it is.

[Rhywun]

I actually only liked bars that were good for both. Good thing I'm old now because what's left of the "scene" stinks. (But not, god forbid, of cigarette smoke.)

[Fist of Etiquette]

So enjoy that extra, government-mandated competition, remaining gay bars.

[Cyto]

Or, if perchance gay folk are just like everyone else, the bar will eventually become an empty shell, standing as a jobs program for a handful of lonely staff. The real world doesn't work like "Field of Dreams". Just building it doesn't guarantee that they will come.

Even very popular night spots can suddenly become unfashionable for reasons that defy understanding. People are fickle like that.

[Rat on a train]

Then just mandate that gays must patronize the bar. If there aren't enough in the area, mandate more gay residents even if you have to draft a few new members into the club.

[loveconstitution1789]

"...will send an inspector to make sure it is gay enough."

Commence super gay auditions now. Fabulous!

[Rat on a train]

This place is more metrosexual than gay. You have until Wednesday to gay it up.

[Jerryskids]

What if a Muslim threatens to firebomb the gay bar should it open? Would that be enough to cancel the plans?

[Tom Bombadil]

In Australia, yes. See synagogue story.

[Robert]

What if it's an Orthodox Jewish gay bar?

Seriously, though, if the gays are there for what they expect from a gay bar, won't the inspector have an inhibiting effect? I mandate you people to be gay...but not act on that here!

[Rhywun]

It's like Stonewall in reverse. "Welcome, kind government bureaucrat!"

[Tom Bombadil]

I'm not being difficult,
what the hell is a gay bar?

[Rich]

It's like a gay blade, but duller.

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

Just ask Domestic Dissident, he can show you...

[EscherEnigma]

A bar that primarily appeals to and is patronized by gay people.

You know, like how you can have a "singles" bar, a "sports" bar, a "we just want to play pool" bar, and so-on?

[Tom Bombadil]

So strange, given Britain's glorious history with commerce that they don't understand how markets work.

[some guy]

To be fair, a decent portion of that history involved pointing cannons at trade partners.

[Tom Bombadil]

I was referring more to internal commerce. It was one of the great birthplaces of the merchant class and modern finance.

[Mickey Rat]

The USA got its start in part by objecting to restrictive British internal trade policies.

[dantheserene]

There may have been a cannon or two involved there as well.

[Libertarian]

Their history is history.

[some guy]

Oh for fuck's sake...

[Rich]

Gay bars in London are closing down at such an "alarming" rate that the redevelopment of the Joiners Arms ... will only get the go-ahead if it includes an LGBT club venue it makes the government just want to *scream*!

[Longtobefree]

"They are closing because of simple economic factors"

And that sort of behavior cannot be tolerated in a socialist country!

[dantheserene]

Reading the actual article (forgive me) shows that this is even worse than the summary suggests. It is everything wrong with central planning, virtue signaling, the works.
This statement stands out. "The borough's mayor, John Biggs, said: "Tower Hamlets council is committed to celebrating our great diversity, which includes serving the needs of our LGBTQ+ community. I am delighted that as a council we are leading the way in using innovative ways to protect spaces such as the Joiners Arms site." He's delighted because it isn't going to cost him anything. Heck, it might get him some future votes so no downside for him.

[Mickey Rat]

Does it ever occur to him that if business that serves a partucular demographic closes, there might no longer be enough people in that demographic in the area to sustain it?

This is progressividm attempting to preserve a transient snapshot in amber.

[Rhywun]

The de-gayification of Tower Hamlets is no joking matter. How dare you belittle our gay bodies like that.

[Libertarian]

As I said above, it's probable that gays just increasingly patronize regular bars now, because they're more accepted. This is like blacks wanting their own dorms at universities -- except it's worse, because it's top down management.

[Robert]

But regular bars don't attract enough gawking tourists.

[EscherEnigma]

It's not "acceptance", it's the internet. You don't need "gay" spaces (be they bars or bookstores) to meet and socialize with other gay folks (including other gay folks you'd like to fuck), you just need a data plan.

That said, if you're a dude into dudes on a Friday night that wants to get hot and sweaty on the dance floor and maybe get lucky? You're still not going to want to go to a "regular" bar, regardless of acceptance. You're still going to want to go to a "gay" bar.

Which is why in big cities, such things will probably never fully die out. But since they appeal to a pretty narrow slice of the population, they'll always get pushed to the margins?.
________
?Most gay bars that close aren't forced out because they lack customers, it's that rent increases too much. So they either retire or relocate to a cheaper area.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

I can only wonder what the resume of someone who wants to be the "gay inspector" would have to look like.

[Longtobefree]

I am an old heterosexual; exactly how wide is the 'gay scale'?
Does it run from one to ten? One to one hundred? How far on that scale is 'gay enough'?
What is the magic of 12 years? the next time that official is up for re-election?

[pan fried wylie]

Matt Lucas

[pan fried wylie]

whoops, "resume", not the inspector himself.

[Princess Trigger]

Relevent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulPgWVC08KI

[Libertarian]

All those years of sending English boys to boarding schools is finally paying off.

[Incomprehensible Bitching]

Segregation is bad, m'Kay?

[Longtobefree]

No! YOUR segregation is bad; MY segregation is social justice, and deserving of tax funds!

[EscherEnigma]

Depends on how you do it.

If you segregate by exclusion, that's probably on the "morally not-okay" side of things. So a gay bar posting a "No Breeders" sign? Not cool.
If you segregate by appeal, that's probably on the "morally okay" side of things. So a gay bar hanging a flag and putting up a "Drag Queen Tuesdays" sign? Pretty cool.

Where it really gets into the weeds though is who is doing the exclusion/appeal, their status as gatekeepers, and other considerations that artificially segregate when things wouldn't otherwise be so disparate. For example, if banks disproportionately refuse home loans to black people, while giving home loans to otherwise-equal white folks, that can create a "segregated" neighborhood of mostly white homeowners. Not because the homeowners had racist intentions, but because the banks did.

[dantheserene]

Well, in this case segregation is the government's job.

[Longtobefree]

Then it's OK, because anything a government does is OK, as long as it does not encourage individual freedoms.

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