Gay couple claim they were ejected from pub for kissing

[Rillington]

The Pink Paper website was merely reporting the latest rather than expressing an opinion.

Fair enough ...

[Escapee]

A gay male couple were asked to stop kissing in my local by the landlady, they ignored the request and were asked to leave. Of course they claimed the request was homophobic, but the landlady pointed out that she didn't think the claim would get them far because she employed 2 gay males behind the bar and one was on duty who they knew.

They were asked to leave for their own safety, because she felt that one or more of the heterosexual males who found it distasteful would be waiting around the corner as they left the premises.

[Kymmy]

Again it's the reason behind the request which is paramount.. I don't think we'll ever truely know why the soho landlord asked them to leave but I do think that with all the protests and publicity that other landlords will think about their reasons before asking the same.

Originally Posted by Escapee

A gay male couple were asked to stop kissing in my local by the landlady, they ignored the request and were asked to leave. Of course they claimed the request was homophobic, but the landlady pointed out that she didn't think the claim would get them far because she employed 2 gay males behind the bar and one was on duty who they knew.

They were asked to leave for their own safety, because she felt that one or more of the heterosexual males who found it distasteful would be waiting around the corner as they left the premises.

I think that is a legitimate reason .The landlady has a duty of care towards all the patrons and if keeping them safe means asking them to leave then fair enough.
There are a couple of pubs near me that do not allow gays in the bar simply because they will get abused either physically and verbally.Although this is clearly wrong and strictly speaking possibly illegal it is the best way to keep the peace in those pubs

[Kymmy]

It though does show that some landlords do make wrong decisions for reasons that shouldn't be there in the first place..

Originally Posted by Kymmy

It though does show that some landlords do make wrong decisions for reasons that shouldn't be there in the first place..

Indeed it does .The clientel of these bars state quite openly that "gays have their own bars and shouldn't be comming here" they have taken over the bars in Newcastle center according to them .The ironic part is that the "gay bars" in the Village as it is known where ,untill a few years back,full of hairy arsed Geordies who kept fighting ,stabbing and shooting each other so that the owners where forced to close ,they were then re-opened as gay themed bars ,they allow mixed clientel in but you will never see a hairy arsed geordie in one because they have a reputation to consider ,they are now limited to empty run down bars on the point of closure simply because of their narrow minded views

[Rillington]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

I don't think we'll ever truely know why the soho landlord asked them to leave but I do think that with all the protests and publicity that other landlords will think about their reasons before asking the same.

I think that the situation with the Soho pub will continue to develop and I can't see this ending here.

As I understand the equality legislation, and please correct me if I am wrong, if it ends up in court, which it might, the pub will have acted unlawfully unless it could prove that the pub's staff would have reacted in the same way if it had been a mixed sex couple who had been kissing - ie asked them to leave.

If this does end up in court it will be an interesting test case and then the pub will have to give the reasons why they behaved in the way that they did.

Your understanding of the burden of proof is back to front.

If it ended up in court, it would be for the complainants (i.e. the pair that were kicked out) to show that, on the balance of probabilities, the landlord was being homophobic rather than enforcing a blanket 'no snogging' policy.

The fact that he asked them to leave is not conclusive proof of anything. The fact that the landlord has made absolutely no statement whatsoever about the matter since then, and no juicy details about his background, politics, or other private tidbits have since emerged, would make it impossibly difficult for them to prove anything.

It is very easy for the complainants to go on a tour of radio phone-ins and bleat about how they felt persecuted. You don't need any evidence to do that. To actually demonstrate in a court that you were persecuted is, thankfully, a little more difficult - rightfully so, because I don't think anybody wants to see perfectly ordinary, law-abiding people sacrificed at the altar of someone else's agenda.

[spreadsheet]

way I see it - landlord has final say

if he doesn't want them in there he can sling out whoever he wants


end of.