Former Salon editor/scribe, Grotto sect member, and Chris Colin penned this article for the Chronicle about some mysterious bar in San Francisco that may or may not have acted in a homophobic manner toward his buddy, "Ryan." It seems some dickslice bouncer at an unnamed bar said to "Ryan" as he was trying to entering the watering hole, "Dude, look at your pants. Look at your bag...obviously this is not your kind of place." Here's part of what went down:
"Dude, look at your pants. Look at your bag," one of them said. "Obviously this is not your kind of place."Ryan's pants, since the guy mentioned them, were a skin-tight pinstripe number. His bag was a purse. Ryan, who is gay, told me later he was dressed "totally faggy."
Which brings me to the point of this column: "This is not your kind of place." Was that a homophobic comment? Or was it just random fashion critique -- obnoxious, sure, but reasonably fair game at an occasionally gruff drinking establishment? Given that haziness, how does a well-meaning business handle a situation like this, once alerted?
Not since the early 1990s has being gay been cool, so Colin seems oddly shocked that a presumably hip place full of Obama supporters and PBR drinkers would be homophobic. Or, as Colin puts it, full of "nicotine-y coarseness to throw you back on your heels."
He then asks the reader, "as a society, how do we disentangle generic rudeness from bigotry?" Hmm, there's too much overlap there to do so. What we think he means to ask is should a bar be allowed to kick out fags if their clientele is full of white kids trying to get their Ernest Hemingway on?
Also, we want to know whether or not this is the vile Zeitgeist what bar Colin is talking about? Take a guess in the comments.
