While us Aussies spend a lot of time huffing and puffing about Trump‘s America, sometimes we should take a look in our own backyard, where, unfortunately, discrimination remains as rampant as ever.
The owner of a café in Cairns has spoken out about the fact that he has lost two faithful customers because he – and some of his staff members – is gay.
Jay Horne – co-owner of Paradiso Café – discussed the tragic situation with local press Tropic Now, and said that he found it “very difficult to comprehend”. A couple, who used to come to the café all the time, told Horne that, as a “gay-owned business”, they would no longer go there, upon realising his sexual orientation.
“They still walk past every single day, but refuse to acknowledge us. As the owner of a café, I’ve never before experienced anything like this”.
Horne is a prominent figure of the LGBT community, and runs FNQ Magazine – one of the few queer-oriented publications in the Cairns area. He was understandably shaken that such homophobia still exists.
“If we had bad customer service or our food was poor, I could understand… But to voice the fact that we’re gay-owned and operated as being their reason is so hard to understand.“The only thing I could really think was, ‘okay, maybe these people think that we have a disease or a virus that they were going to contract through our café’, or that they believed that if we touched them, they would end up gay.“You cannot catch being gay. And I do find it offensive that people do have that belief”.
Fortunately, Horne reached out to the blessed internet community about the whole thing with a Facebook post, and received hundreds of likes and comments in support (as it should be).
Some people have really got to get their shit together, hey?
Source: SBS.
Image: Jay Horne / Facebook.
