# The ultimate irony--Gay bashing attack at the Stonewall Inn **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 5, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112 "2010-10-05T13:27:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/101 "2010-10-10T22:08:28Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Remember, if you will, that I did say there was some value in your challenging A rush to judgment on the basis of only the facts available – I just find it tiresome, whenever there is a topic involving allegation of criminal misbehavior, your instant move to play Gotcha! on the basis of whether we as yet have all the facts. Done a bit less snarkily, with a concession that it seems that way now but may not prove out when all the facts are in, it could be a valuable part of a discussion. At present, it means that anyone expressing an opinion about a news story involving alleged criminal behavior can expect to be held by you to the criminal-trial standard immediately on the story breaking. (It is also fascinating that when the alleged miscreancy is political chicanery, you are Johnny-on-the-spot with the Gotcha! comment when the alleged perpetrator is a Republican, and nowhere near as willing to do the same when it is a Democrat. > > Since you asked, and all that. I for one am pleased that **Bricker’s** challenge was met by other posters who felt the question was reasonable enough to respond to with the FACTS. Furthermore his challenge was germaine to the thread wheras your complaint his simply a nitpicky hijack to run down a political oponent. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/102 "2010-10-11T02:25:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > > [@mhendo](#): > > > > Not at all. > > > > One can be well aware that one is in a gay bar without having chosen that bar specifically _because_ it was a gay bar. > > Of course. But then you’d have very little reason to ask the patron you encounter in the restroom if he’s gay. Maybe they wanted to ascertain that he himself was not a robber. Professional courtesy have something about the number of robbers allowed to rob within some minimum distance of each other. After all, we have to exhaust all possibilities before we consider the simplest and most obvious answers. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/103 "2010-10-11T15:42:41Z")
> [@pikey\_pete](#): > > pray tell, why is this not ironic? it sure as hell fits in any definition I can find in my two different treeware dictionaries. If someone really wants to gaybash, presumably they will go to a place with a bunch of gay men, no? Irony requires that a situation somehow necessarily contains an opposite expectation. Is there anything about a gay bar that makes you expect that homophobes wouldn’t target gay men there? To recycle the analogy I used upthread and you presumably missed, would you think it was ironic if I hated gymnasts and went to the Summer Olympics to beat one up? It’s out of print, but if you can dig up a copy at your local library or through an interlibrary loan, I highly recommend \*The Compass of Irony \*by D.C. Muecke. (You could also try to buy a copy online, but I think a friend got me the last reasonably priced one about five years ago–these days they’re all running $100 to $200 or more.) It should help you figure out exactly what irony is, since you’re apparently having problems parsing a more concise dictionary definition. Here are some other things that are not ironic: 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife A free ride when you’ve already paid Rain on your wedding day ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/104 "2010-10-12T13:50:03Z")
I used the word “irony” because you would think the one place a gay person could be safe would be a gay bar. Particularly a gay bar as famous as the Stonewall Inn. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/105 "2010-10-12T14:59:33Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > If someone really wants to gaybash, presumably they will go to a place with a bunch of gay men, no? Irony requires that a situation somehow necessarily contains an opposite expectation. Is there anything about a gay bar that makes you expect that homophobes wouldn’t target gay men there? To recycle the analogy I used upthread and you presumably missed, would you think it was ironic if I hated gymnasts and went to the Summer Olympics to beat one up? This argument kind of makes it impossible to ironically gay-bash _anywhere._ If it’s not ironic when you do it at a gay bar, and it’s not ironic if you do it at a gay-bashing convention, and presumably it isn’t ironic when done someplace unrelated to gays or bashing, what is the gay-basher in search of an ironic location to do?\* Why do you hate gay-bashers? Matthew Shepard wasn’t killed at a gay bar. In fact, I would imagine that anti-gay violence at gay-friendly establishments is far less common than anti-gay violence elsewhere. In this particular case, I don’t see anything wrong with the OP’s use of the term _ironic._ \*Please don’t say “wear a rainbow John Deere hat”. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/106 "2010-10-12T20:06:53Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > > [@pikey\_pete](#): > > > > pray tell, why is this not ironic? it sure as hell fits in any definition I can find in my two different treeware dictionaries. > > If someone really wants to gaybash, presumably they will go to a place with a bunch of gay men, no? Irony requires that a situation somehow necessarily contains an opposite expectation. Is there anything about a gay bar that makes you expect that homophobes wouldn’t target gay men there? To recycle the analogy I used upthread and you presumably missed, would you think it was ironic if I hated gymnasts and went to the Summer Olympics to beat one up? I’d think it was silly - since you’d be up to your arse in more gymnasts than you could handle, plus their trainers, minders, fans, and general law enforcement. Better to see if you could find one not it its natural habitat, as 'twere, with no-one but itself to look after its welfare. Similarly, if you want to Paki-bash, you don’t go to your local mosque and stir up more shit than you can handle; you see if you can catch one wandering into mainly white territory (or black territory; anecdotal evidence has it that ethnic minorities don’t necessarily like each other any more than white folks do) by himself. And so similarly, you figure a gay guy in a gay bar, probably surrounded by a horde of other gays, some of whom may be pretty muscly guys and in any case have numbers on their side, is in about the safest place he’s going to be unless an even bigger horde of homophobes come around mob-handed. That’s not out of the question, sad to say, but wasn’t the case under discussion. Conclusion: No-one missed your analogy, but it didn’t do the job it was meant to. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/107 "2010-10-12T21:05:07Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This argument kind of makes it impossible to ironically gay-bash _anywhere._ Why do you think the universe demands that there \*must \*be such a thing as a gaybashing that is ironic because of its location? A gaybashing that takes place at a prominent gay bar is _disappointing_, but it’s not _ironic_. > [@Malacandra](#): > > I’d think it was silly Homophobes aren’t noted for their devotion to logic. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112/108 "2010-10-12T21:44:17Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > I used the word “irony” because you would think the one place a gay person could be safe would be a gay bar. Particularly a gay bar as famous as the Stonewall Inn. This is a rather naive assumption. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ultimate-irony-gay-bashing-attack-at-the-stonewall-inn/556112.md?page=5)