August 10, 2010

A Gay Bar. Really?

First off, there's money to be made selling overpriced alcoholic drinks to gay men looking to socialize in Manhattan.  And in fact I've no doubt there are a lot of gay Muslim men in Manhattan.  So Greg Gutfeld's proposal to set up a gay bar catering to Muslims in close proximity to the proposed "Park51" mosque may actually be a not-out-of-this-world business proposition -- although I don't take him seriously when he insists that the idea is anything other than sour joke made in questionable taste.

And the principle is sound -- assuming that the bar would meet pre-existing zoning restrictions, which I assume it does.  Granted, there are restrictions on these sorts of establishments being located near houses of worship but given that there is already a gentleman's club called Babeland within a few blocks of this location (how do I know that?  The internet told me!) and the mosque isn't established yet, there would be time to get in the plans for the club now.  More importantly, living in a free society means having to tolerate people near you who say and do things that you find distasteful as long as they aren't harming you directly.  If Gutfeld is upset by a mosque on Park Place but has to tolerate it anyway, then the Imam may well also have to tolerate the gay bar.

In any event, even though I find Gutfeld's proposal to be a joke made in questionable taste, hey, I'm not always opposed to jokes made in questionable taste.  I've got a lot of good mileage recently out of recycling the "rattlesnake" joke and the "Seamus the bridge-builder" joke and both of those are in questionable taste too.  I put a poll up on the front page of the blog, using the names picked by readers of Andrew Sullivan's blog -- if anyone would know the name of a good gay bar in Manhattan, it would be Sully -- because I think that Readers here could make a better choice from the list of options given to them.

7 comments:

  1. Aww... you left out "Blue Oyster Moon Cult" as an option in your poll.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ya know I wonder how many people protesting the mosque/ center would also find an excuse to protest a new gay bar...

    Ah bigotry how we love thee...

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And lest we claim that "Islam is a violent, cruel religion," and back that up with citations from the Koran, let us not forget that the Christian Bible, too, has many cruel, violent passages -- maybe more

    Today's atheists, for the most part, are not against religion. They are against Christianity.

    ReplyDelete
  6. sorry I was forced to publish before putting in the ...

    blogger sometimes has a mind of it's own

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Thoughtful, insightful, or informative comments are always welcome. Advertising will be deleted permanently. TL reserves the right to delete comments in his sole discretion (but rarely does so other than for advertising).