Okay, first of all, curse you for making me click in the link in the OP so I would be in a position to answer you coherently.
Second, it appears that people were accusing Piers Morgan of being insensitive/“sensationalist” by unnecessarily pointing out that his location was “a gay bar.” Objectively, it’s difficult to argue that they didn’t have a point. His Instagram doesn’t really convey any information about his location beyond the fact that that he was in a gay bar. There’s a lot of room left for speculation, though:
*“ooh, that Piers Morgan chap goes to gay bars! He must be one of THOSE sorts.”
“Hang on, he’s with a bird in that gay bar; maybe 'e’s not bent, after all…”
“Don’t be daft, man; birds aren’t allowed in gay bars!”
“Well, they probably let him in because he’s a celebrity.”
“'alf a tic, he mentions there’s another bloke with them. A threesome, eh? Always thought he was bit dodgy”*
[Homer Simpson Voice]…and that’s the story of how Piers Morgan keeps people talking about him…[/HSV]
Third of all, do I even WANT to know who the fuck Piers Morgan is?
You’ll be happy to know that he is out. That was a Soho, London gay bar, not New York. He’s a presenter on a morning show called Good Morning Britain and the woman he was with, Susanna Reid, is a co-host.
Not important who he is, only whether or not he is gay.
And where he fits on the spectrum of gayitude. Totally gay, gay “curious”, or accepting. The last is, of course, the least gay position on the spectrum, but is nonetheless more gay than the position of right-thinking Americans, who abhor such moral laxity. There is right, and there is wrong, there is no “sorta right” and “kinda wrong”.
The only confusion here is your own (well, and the OP’s). There are two general principles in play here, and they don’t contradict each other. To wit:
1) A few random posts on social media don’t constitute an official edict of social etiquette. Not every usage that a couple people happen to object to thereby becomes automatically verboten, even for intelligent polite people who sincerely strive to avoid causing offense in general.
2) It is usually considered in poor taste, though not necessarily outright offensive, to explicitly specify another’s minority-group status when it’s completely irrelevant, especially if you’re not a member of that group yourself.
E.g., you wouldn’t say “I asked my physically-handicapped receptionist if there were any calls for me while I was out”, or “This recording is of an Asian violinist playing on a Stradivarius”, or “I borrowed a couple stitch markers from a male knitter in my craft club”. Unless the fact of the receptionist being physically disabled, or the violinist being Asian, or the knitter being male is in some meaningful way relevant to what you’re saying about them.
Otherwise, you just look like a shallow twat who instinctively labels people by the fact of their superficial “difference”, even if that difference has nothing to do with their presence in whatever narrative you happen to be telling.
Therefore, since the photo and remark that Piers Morgan tweeted appeared to have nothing to do with the fact that the bar he was in was specifically a gay bar, and since it is pretty generally safe to assume that Piers Morgan is looking like a shallow twat whatever he’s on about, a few people questioned his choice of words.
But nothing said by anyone in that context implies in any way that there’s anything wrong with calling a gay bar a gay bar when that fact is actually relevant to what you happen to be saying about it.
Even so, that’s still something to know. It’s fairly common in my experience for people to mention something they find unusual or interesting, and there’s no malice whatsoever behind it. But if it’s considered impolite to mention ethnicity or sexual orientation when it’s irrelevant, that’s something people should know, because it’s a common faux pas.
[QUOTE=adaher]
It’s fairly common in my experience for people to mention something they find unusual or interesting, and there’s no malice whatsoever behind it.
[/quote]
Well duh, if they are mentioning a circumstance because they find it unusual or interesting, then it is relevant.
For instance, if you say “This Asian violinist was interested in Stradivarius violins because they seemed exotic and foreign in addition to being musical rarities”, then specifying that the violinist is Asian (or at least not European) is kind of essential to the point.
But if you say, for example, “An Asian violinist bought a Stradivarius” or “An Asian violinist was the concertmaster” or “An Asian violinist played very quickly” or whatever, you sound a little weird. Because the impression is that either you’re trying to make some point about what Asians in general are like as violinists, or that you just can’t help drawing attention to the fact that this violinist happens to be Asian no matter how irrelevant it is to what you’re actually trying to say.
[QUOTE=adaher]
But if it’s considered impolite to mention ethnicity or sexual orientation when it’s irrelevant, that’s something people should know, because it’s a common faux pas.
[/QUOTE]
I think you’ll find it is pretty generally known. Yes, some people don’t seem able to stop dragging in such irrelevancies in remarks like “a speech about the emergency measures was made by the woman mayor” or “Professor Jones is a black economist specializing in international currency exchange” or “A gay business owner agreed that fixing the pavement would be necessary”.
But that usually doesn’t mean that they don’t know and understand the general principle of not emphasizing irrelevant details. It just means that on some level they are so fixated on what they perceive as the fundamental oddness of a mayor being female, or an economics professor being black, or a business owner being gay, that they simply can’t recognize it as irrelevant enough to leave out.
Sure you can. But your hearers will naturally expect that your location probably has some relevance to what you’re saying.
If you were merely thinking about your unreliable shoelaces and trying to make a point about how insecure they are, wouldn’t you just say something like “My shoelaces came undone last night while I was out”?
It does seem somewhat less odd to say “My shoelaces came undone at a Chinese restaurant” than to say “I got this drink half an hour ago from a lesbian bartender” or “I heard some terrible things about the storm damage from a black news announcer”, etc. That’s because we’re used to people being more insistent on irrelevant details of race, gender, sexuality, etc., than on irrelevant details of restaurant theme.
