20 Sep 2008
Australia for the gays
I ran into a
friend of mine tonight who, as every other time I’ve ever met him out and about
on the scene, was upbeat, superficial and ready for the fast food conversations
we all crave on a night out of a Friday. Jokingly, by way of explaining his eye
make-up, he revealed he’d been attacked the previous weekend in a fast food
joint on Dame Street. Just as all the pubs ’n’ clubs on Dublin’s premier booze
strip kicked out, some knacker had violently objected to his gayness in the
grease queue. He had two black eyes; the minimum wage people working in the
place obviously ignored what happened and when he called the cops (the local
cop shop is Pearse Street, the epicentre of gay community policing), there
wasn’t much they could offer him except the promise to help in any future
prosecution.
But enough of
that depressing bit; what I thought was brilliant was that my friend was out
and about again a week later, accepting that morons are likely to assault –
it’s in their nature – but carrying on as the big auld mary he always was. Sometimes we
forget that, regardless of how assimilated and normal you might think you are
(and I am neither of those things, I hope), every single homosexual should, somewhere
in the back of their mind, hold the idea of ‘them and us’ and be prepared for
the unexpected reminder that you are part of a minority.