A North Carolina bar is facing national backlash after the owner asked a gay couple to leave.
Andrew Deras and Justin Baker were forced to leave Louie’s Sports Pub in Fayetteville last week after owner Pam Griffin asked the couple to stop kissing. Deras and Baker apparently shared a short kiss when Griffin approached them to complain.
“He put his arm around me, he gave me a kiss, and she said this wasn’t right, this wasn’t OK,” Deras told WRAL. “She threatened both of us. He gave me a kiss. It was very minor. It was just a peck. It was two seconds.”
Griffin approached the men with a security guard after receiving complaints from customers, “eight or nine” according to The Fayetteville Observer. “They came to me and said, ‘Pam, you got a problem out here and it’s going to get ugly.'”
According to Griffin, customers were complaining over the couple’s affection towards one another. “I walked up to them calmly. I asked them guys, you know, can you kind of just separate, kind of move apart?” she said. She told the pair that she didn’t care if they remained in the bar, but asked them to “just calm down because you’re making people feel uncomfortable.”
Both sides disagree on what happened next. Griffin maintains that the men cursed at her and started to aggressively kiss one another. Deras and Baker claim that they laughed at her request and shared another kiss.
“I just gave Andrew a kiss, and that’s when she started getting really crazy,” said Baker. “She’s saying, ‘This is enough. This is enough,’ like basically telling us to get out.”
The bar’s Facebook page has since been inundated with comments from gay people angry with Griffin’s treatment of the couple. Griffin stated that someone called and threatened to burn the bar down, while she’s also received death threats.
“I tried to be as nice as I could. This is a straight bar. I don’t mind who comes in – white, black, mixed, Chinese,” she said. “Everybody’s welcome. But you have to respect the kind of place you’re in.”
Don Lemon, the gay former host of "CNN This Morning," has reached a settlement with the network after he was unceremoniously removed from his position following controversial on-air comments.
According to TheWrap, the 57-year-old Lemon has agreed to a separation deal for approximately $24.5 million, the equivalent he would have earned for serving out the remainder of his final contract, which was set to expire three-and-a-half years after he was pulled from the airwaves.
In April 2023, Lemon, who was featured on Metro Weekly's coverin 2016, announced on X that he had learned from his agent -- and not from the network, for which he had worked for 17 years -- that he had been terminated.
Several LGBTQ candidates were successful in yesterday's "Super Tuesday" primaries, with some winning their party's nomination and others moving on to runoff elections.
Candidates appeared on the ballot in six different states: Texas, California, Arkansas, Tennessee, Vermont, and North Carolina, with several candidates poised to become historic "firsts" should they emerge victorious in general elections later this year.
In Texas, Molly Cook, running in the Houston-based 15th State Senate District, placed second, with 21% of the vote.
Because none of the Democratic candidates in the primary reached the 50% plus one vote threshold needed to win the primary, Cook will face off against State Rep. Jarvis Johnson in a runoff election on May 28.
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, one of three candidates seeking the Republican nomination for governor this year, said that transgender people who refuse to use the bathroom matching their assigned sex at birth should be forced to urinate or defecate on public street corners.
Robinson, known for his anti-gay diatribes and outspoken opposition to LGBTQ visibility and civil rights, made the comments during a recent speech at a campaign event in Cary, North Carolina.
Like many other Republican candidates for office, Robinson has focused intently on culture-war issues, including transgender rights, to rally social conservatives around his campaign.
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