Homophobia Strikes Again?

UPDATE: Please forgive me for being an idiot and not paying attention to the local blogosphere last week. As Gustavo mentions in the comments, Navel Gazing mentioned this earlier. I guess I have some “catch up” work to do today.

File this under “The H8 Files”. First CDM High School admins took the drama out of the drama department over “Rent”, then allegations swirled around the Newport Beach Police Department and its possible acceptance of homophobia. And now? Orange Police are shutting down the “gay night” at Lucky Strike.

For two months, Orange County’s gay community turned out in force to the Lucky Strike bowling alley for Spin Tuesdays, a nightclub-style event with DJs spinning pop, dance and ’80s music, and a velvet-rope entrance for as many as 1,000 bowlers, pool players and dancers.

The week before last, the gathering at The Block at Orange was shut down after police told Lucky Strike’s management they could be ticketed or arrested for allowing dancing, live entertainment and outside promotions without a permit.

But the event’s organizers tell a different story. They were targeted by police, they say, because it was a gay event.

“Everyone’s feeling like the gay community is not welcome here,” said Zach Moos, 34, one of the event’s promoters and DJs. […]

“They’re after us, they’re chasing us, and we’re not doing anything wrong,” he said. “I’m the last person to cry discrimination, but there’s definitely some bias here.”

Serioiusly, what’s happening? First, CDM students couldn’t do a play… Until they could. Then, Newport Police taunted a fellow officer who wasn’t even gay for being gay. And now we can’t even bowl at Lucky Strike?

If there’s any silver lining to the Prop H8 election results, it’s that this has forced homophobia out of the closet. Also, this show us that we have far more to do once we finally have secured marriage equality for good. There’s still a whole lot of discrimination going on, and we have much more work to do in addressing it and ending it.

And seriously, why are Orange Police freaking out over queer people bowling?

5 Comments

  1. The Block is one of the most gay friendly malls in Orange County. Many of my friends hang out there and none have reported any difficulty there, so I’m surprised by this report. Is it possible that the Bowling Alley didn’t file the proper forms?

  2. I disagree with Misha. Orange cops are pretty notorious for hassling gays and anyone they don’t like in general. I don’t mean to say that it a problem with a lot of their cops or even most of their cops, but it’s well known to anyone that grew up in oc and is young.

  3. I was telling one of my dad’s Employ/partners about the issues, he asked what city, I told him Orange, he said “well they don’t allow anything gay, you should know that, why did you pick that city”

    Mind you, he is a str8, Republican, lobbyist on the federal level, and if he says this… what do you think is going on?

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