I guess you really can tell if someone is gay just by looking at them – which is why Ian Jolly was completely in the dark until one fateful restaurant visit last year:
A Restaurant that refused a blind man entry because it thought his guide dog was “gay” has been ordered by the Equal Opportunity Tribunal to pay him $1500.Woodville North man Ian Jolly, 57, was barred from dining at Grange restaurant Thai Spice in May last year after a staff member mistook his guide dog Nudge for a “gay dog”, the tribunal heard this week.
A statement given by restaurant owners Hong Hoa Thi To and Anh Hoang Le said one of the waiters had understood Mr Jolly’s partner Chris Lawrence “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 statement said.
Mr Jolly and Ms Lawrence were refused entry to the restaurant – which displays a “guide dogs welcome” sign – even after providing staff with a guide dogs fact card.
What confused me, other than the bit about Jolly’s dog being gay, is that the staff conflated gender neutrality and desexualization with homosexuality. As though gay men – or gay seeing eye dogs – don’t have sex!
