Gay Couple Kicked Out of Night Club In Canada For Kissing!

Two gay men in Prince Edward Island say a nightclub owner discriminated against them when he told them to stop kissing on the dance floor on Friday, Dec 7. Kirs Jay was drinking and dancing with his boyfriend at Jack Cameron’s Nightclub and Eatery in downtown Charlottetown. Jay says the manager, Gordie Cameron, tapped his boyfriend on the shoulder while they were kissing and led the two men into a back room. There, he told them to stop kissing or leave the nightclub. “I felt like we were picked out on the dance floor because we were two men, and he didn’t want us showing our affection,” Jay says. Cameron told them he would do the same with any heterosexual couple, and gave them both a free drink. Jay says they gave the drinks away to friends and then left. Jay’s boyfriend posted about the event that night on Facebook, and soon the PEI gay community was buzzing. The Jack Cameron’s Facebook page disappeared after a barrage of critical comments. Cameron, who just took over managing the bar two months ago, sounded tired and a little defeated when he took Xtra’s call Dec 11. “I’m the farthest person from homophobic,” he says. “I’m the most open-minded person in the world.” "They were hardcore going at 'er in the middle of the dance floor," says manager Gordie Cameron. "You're not allowed to do that, no matter what gender you are." (Facebook.com) Cameron says he is just trying to clean up the reputation of his nightclub, which means stopping excessive displays of affection from gay and straight people alike. Jack Cameron’s, once called the Velvet Underground, was once nicknamed “the Dirty,” one of Charlottetown’s sleaziest dives. Cameron says that everyone has to adjust to his new rules, and Jay just took the comments the wrong way. “They were hardcore going at ’er in the middle of the dance floor. Necking, you know,” says Cameron. “You’re not allowed to do that, no matter what gender you are.” Amy MacQuarrie, a member of PEI’s gay community, was at Jack Cameron’s and saw the event take place. She says she thought Cameron acted sensibly and professionally. “He quietly took them aside and told them to knock it off,” she says. MacQuarrie says there were straight men giving Jay and his boyfriend “some nasty-looking looks,” and that Cameron’s actions made things safer for everyone. However, there were plenty of heterosexual couples similarly kissing without repercussions, she notes. Colleen McKie, liaison for ARCPEI, a local gay and lesbian group, says she expects that what happened to Jay was an isolated incident. “I’m optimistic,” she says. “In PEI, I would like to think regardless of your sexual orientation you can go somewhere and have a good time.” She says Charlottetown has made great strides in inclusiveness in recent years. If Jay and his boyfriend were singled out for being gay, she says, it was the exception to the rule. Jay says he has told all his gay friends not to go to the nightclub in future, and some people on local gay forums are discussing holding a kiss-in. Jay, however, says he wouldn’t attend. “That’s just giving Jack Cameron’s more business that I don’t want to give them,” he says. Cameron says he was shocked by the online reaction, and now he just wants to move on. “I thought I was pretty nice to them,” he says. “I’m trying to cater to everybody — I do mean everybody. And this does not help.”

• I don't want to see anyone making out in public. I kiss is one thing, this was different. They need to go home and carry on like this. No discrimination

• And yet the straight couples who were making out were not kicked out. That's the part that makes me think it was discrimination.

• I don't either, R1. But there shouldn't be a double standard. Nothing is ever done when it is a straight couple engaging in the same behavior.

• It's a club on Prince Edward Island. Who fucking cares!!! OP is a troll posting all these negative stories from Canada. It must be exhausting work for he/she/it.

• What will Anne of Green Gables do about this situation???

  Gilbert%20Selwyn

• OP, much ado about nothing. The owner is right: REGARDLESS OF ORIENTATION, couples need to GET A ROOM if they feel the need to engage in a major tonsil-tennis, grope-and-tug make-out session in the middle of a small-town "nightclub."

• xtra (Canada's GLBT Newspaper) doesn't think it is ado about nothing. They are the ones that wrote the above article.

  http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Gay_couple_kicked_out_of_PEI_club_for_kissing-12928.aspx

• [quote]tonsil-tennis It's tonsil-hockey in Canada.

• Xtra makes much ado about everything. Someone cuts a gay person off in traffic and it's a Human Rights Violation. No one takes those over-sensitive bitches seriously anymore. It sounds like the club that the new owner took over was quite a sleazy little dive. He's trying to clean it up and make it nicer. He's well within his rights to ask couples making out to knock it off. And it sounds like he did it nicely. He took them to the backroom, bought them drinks, and asked them politely to stop. As long as he does the same with straight people, then fine. But personally I've never seen straight people make spectacles of themselves in this manner in bars. It's usually only young gay men and women who are so full of their own importance and self-righteousness that feel the need to make out in publiuc. They want everyone to know they're here, they're queer, and you better get used to it. We are used to it, darlings. We just don't care.

• [quote] Someone cuts a gay person off in traffic and it's a Human Rights Violation. No one takes those over-sensitive bitches seriously anymore. So R9 you must believe that A)In Toronto the Rental Agent was RIGHT to discriminate against the gay couple See link below B) The muslim barber was right to refuse a lesbian a haircut. (Link in next thread) I mean as you said above, we are all being over-senstive bitches. So you must also think these two stories mentioned here feature 'over-senstive' people who were refused a service. Is that correct?

  http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Rental_agent_says_shes_had_death_threats-12752.aspx

• I was in a pub in Toronto one night seated next to a table of cute babydykes. Two of them started "goin' at 'er pretty hard" in the way that self-important baby gays do. The owner, a fierce lesbian, came over to them and told them to knock it off. But she did it in a nice, funny way. She asked if anyone could get in on the action. Once the ice was broken she told them that they really can't do that in her pub. And then she bought them drinks to soothe any hurt feelings or embarrassment. She wasn't discriminating against them because they're gay. She was maintaining a certain level of acceptable public behaviour that they obviously hadn't learned about at home.

• The muslim barber was right to refuse a lesbian a haircut. Link below for R9

  http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Toronto_barber_shop_wont_cut_womens_hair_on_religious_grounds-12751.aspx

• [quote]So you must also think these two stories mentioned here feature 'over-senstive' people who were refused a service. You're half right. I think that A) is clearly a human rights violation and is totally and completely unacceptaable. I hope they are fined and punished. But B) is not. B) is a case of an over-sensitive, trouble-making dyke angry that she couldn't get her way every second of the day. Of all the barber shops not only on that street but in Toronto she chose a Muslim one. Really.

  R9

• I'm glad you responded and cleared things up R9. Seriously thanks and much appreciated.

• I love that the club manager is called Gordie Cameron, which is the most Canadian name possible and that he phrases his complaint thusly: "They were hardcore going at ’er in the middle of the dance floor." R5, Anne would break a slate over Gordie's head.

• A few years ago in my College days I was at a GAY bar in a small city with my then girlfriend. We kissed a few times fully on the lips. We thought we could do that as we were gay, a couple and in a gay bar. The Manager of the bar asked us to stop. Her reason it was the Christmas party season and they get a lot of straigt customers at that time of year and did not want to cause offence.

  Lesbian

• Canada seems to be going to hell the last few years... what's up, Canadians?!?

• R17 I've noticed this too. They're turning into what the US was like during the early 2000's - very uptight and conservative.

• What is going on with Canada? ...first the pig farmer serial killers, then the Toronto mall shootings, then the hockey coach tripping the young player, then the bus beheading. Now the gay dancing wars. What is next? Crossing the street against the red light?

• Canada has moved extreme right. Their Prime Minister is an Evangelical Christian who refuses to support full gay equality, even thought the courts over ruled him. He tried to veto the courts decision, but failed his vote in parliament. He just opened up the new "Ministry of Jesus" last year, to protect Christians from prosecution from global evil forces (like Atheists and Gays). He has total majority power until 2015, so we will see what he does in a world where the leaders of most Western Nations support full equality, including the Conservative PM of the UK. If Canadians re-elect him in 2015....well then we know Canada has permanently become the new Texas.