Friday, March 10, 2006

Hoosier Pub Bans Dancing Grrls


(Link) They wouldn't mind strippers or some blonde spinning around a brass pole. It's just those women slow dancing with each other they have a problem with.
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1 comment:

LNewsEditor said...

JIC Post:
By Dan Shaw
Journal & Courier

(Lafayette, IN) -- Four women have reported to the Lafayette Human Relations Commission that a local pub discriminates against homosexuals.

Amanda Grindstaff, Alana Curtis, Courtney McClannen and Brandis Kuszmaul, all of Lafayette, submitted the written complaints on Tuesday. The human relations commission investigates cases of alleged illegal discrimination.

Eric Cox, owner of Cox's Pub, couldn't be reached for this story.

In the written complaints, the four women charge that Cox's Pub in Lafayette has an established rule that prohibits couples of the same sex from dancing with each other to slow songs. The women wrote they found the ban offensive but it did not lead them to go the human's rights commission.

"I don't agree with it," said Kuszmaul, 23, who is a lesbian. "But I obeyed it. I respected it."

Rather, it was only after Cox decided to ban the women from his establishment on Feb. 18 that they looked for redress from the law, they wrote.

The ban has since been lifted for most, but not all, of the women.

"Regardless if the ban has been lifted from the majority of us, the main focus at hand here is that we are being denied equal access to the dance floor," Grindstaff said. "We're not asking for special treatment, we're just asking for equal treatment."

The complaints state that Cox shut the doors on them after a visit from Citizens for Civil Rights on Feb. 14.

A representative of the local group went there to find out if the owner indeed had a rule that prohibits homosexuals from slow dancing with each other, the women say. Several of the women said Cox had mistakenly assumed that they had complained to Citizens for Civil Rights.

Wayne Szulkowski, an attorney who represents the human rights commission, said two members of the commission will soon be appointed to investigate the complaints. Their findings could lead to a hearing, he said.

"It will really depend on the amount of cooperation we receive," he said.

The human relations commission is next scheduled to meet April 20, but a special meeting for this case could be called, Szulkowski said.

Kuszmaul said she has frequented Cox's Pub ever since she was 21 with a group made up mostly of lesbians. Cox has decided to readmit all of the banned women to the pub except her, she said.

"I have no idea why," she said. "He said he's had problems with me before, but I've never been kicked out of there."

3/10/2006 10:55 AM

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