“Gay Dog” Discrimination Defence Fail
Under the influence of what, did they ever think this would work…?
A restaurant that refused to seat a blind patron because its workers allegedly believed his guide dog was gay has been fined $1,500 by the Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal.
At first glance it appeared as if this would be a story about a restaurant discriminating against a blind person who it believed to be gay using the dog as a lame excuse. However, on closer inspection, the story restores our faith in the human ability to be totally ridiculous.
Breitbart: Ian Jolly was told he could not take guide dog Nudge into Adelaide’s Thai Spice last May because a member of staff objected, The Sunday Mail reported.
The restaurant’s owners said a misunderstanding had arisen between Jolly’s female companion and a waiter who understood the woman “to be saying she wanted to bring a gay dog into the restaurant”.
“The staff genuinely believed that Nudge was an ordinary pet dog which had been desexed to become a gay dog,” the owners said in a statement to South Australia’s Equal Opportunity Tribunal.
Quite why having a gay dog in a restaurant would be any worse than having a straight dog in a restaurant was not made clear. The only important feature of this dog was that it was a guide dog – apparently the restaurant was even displaying a “guide dogs welcome” sign; no provisos re: dog’s sex, sexuality, colour, religion or anything else referred to.
