Brody's Scribbles... Nit Picky? Tacky? Discrimination? Or just plain stupid?

Perkins Cove-Sunset, Ogunquit ME Photo By Li Ward

By Brody Levesque (Bethesda, Maryland) July 24 | I sometimes have to wonder at what point common sense and/or a sense of reality disappears from the average American when approaching a subject that even remotely hints of sex. Then, once you add good old fashioned ignorance and bias to the mix it gets really interesting. Today's case in point: The lead paragraph of an article at The Advocate.com entitled "Shirts-Off for Maine Gay Bartenders?" states; "Officials who ordered an Ogunquit, Maine, gay bar owner to make his bartenders wear shirts while pouring are rechecking their facts to see if the bar was really in violation of state health codes."

Now, this story from the Advocate is actually a follow-up companion piece to a story posted yesterday that went viral in the blogosphere on many LGBT blogs as well as catching the attention of the mainstream media outlets. According to a published report by the local newspaper online, Seacoastonline.com, last week a local Ogunquit Heath Inspector told the bar's owner to have his male bartenders cover up as pouring drinks shirtless was in violation of Maine's Health Code:

OGUNQUIT — Officials are re-checking the facts in a contentious decision to request bartenders to keep their shirts on at a popular gay bar downtown.

After Code Enforcement Officer Paul Lempicki told Mainestreet bar owner Normand Paquin last week to make sure his bartenders covered up their bare chests, calling the topless pourers a “health hazard,” Lempicki and Town Manager Tom Fortier have been in contact with Peggy Albert of the Department of Health and Human Services to figure out if Paquin's staff is actually in violation of state code.

Now, apparently, the small village's leaders, after considerable "national" attention are scrambling to see if just possibly the Inspector was a tad bit too zealous in enforcing the Health Code. According to the Seacoastonline;

"Town Manager Tom Fortier said the story has had national coverage on mainstream lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender blogs and websites, such as Advocate.com and Towleroad.com, since being published Thursday locally. “This thing is huge,” he said.

Fortier said if the bartenders weren't actually in violation, he will issue a public apology to the bar."

Then of course the article goes on to quote the applicable State Codes etc which I won't bore you with. But here's the thing, if you read the comments left back at the Advocate online, and there's not many actually, the tenor seems to be that once again, the good people of "The Pine Tree State" seem to have it in for Gay rights. Ah yes, this is on par with voting down marriage equality...or is it really?

Here's a an Op-Ed published in Thursday's Seacoastonline:

Too bad for the bartenders at Mainestreet, who are most likely going to see a decline in their tips now that they have to put their shirts back on.

After receiving complaints about topless male bartenders being seen at the establishment, the town responded by asking club owner Norm Paquin to have his crew cover up, and also hide liquor bottles visible from the street since a recent renovation to the bar's front deck.

We're not sure we buy Ogunquit Code Enforcement Officer Paul Lempicki's argument that shirtless male bartenders are a "health hazard," but we respect Paquin for taking the claim in stride and doing what he can to address the concerns of residents and the town's Select Board.

There's long been a delicate balancing act in Ogunquit, where a thriving gay scene exists alongside a thriving tourist trade that attracts straight couples and families. At the same time, couples, families and singles, gay and straight, seek to live peacefully in this town they call home

While plenty of people might get a kick out of seeing a shirtless bartender pour a round or two, we can certainly understand how a family passing by this scene might be concerned — we suspect that for most visitors the problem is more about the very conspicuous consumption of alcohol right on Main Street than seeing the bare chests of good-looking men. At least we hope so. There's a reason families don't take their kids to Florida or Cancun for spring break, and it has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the college crowds.

If it's the bare-chested men alone that have caused the alarm, however, there's a great deal more work to be done in town. Just a hop, skip and jump down the road from Mainestreet there's a beach peppered with men in Speedos.

We'll be very impressed when Lempicki and the Select Board figure out how to tackle that problem.

I tend to agree with the paper's point. But I need to consider this as well; why the hell is crap like this making news and being written about in the first place? Has American society and culture gotten so skewed as to display this type of narrow-minded ignorance constantly? There's absolutely NO way that the Health Inspector can honestly say that he was just enforcing the law, none. Go back to the Seacoastonline's article and read the quoted segment of the state's health code. No mention of bare-chests, or hairy chests, or chests at all for that matter. Although the thought of hairnets for bears is pretty amusing...

The comments at the Advocate and elsewhere have pretty much, at least from the Gay perspective seemed to indicate that this was a form of discrimination. That the Health Inspector was getting alittle dig in at the the Town's Gay visitor's and local LGBT populace. That it was all part of the ultra-right/Christiban's conspiracy to further erode LGBT Equality Rights, comparing this incident to the Vote on the Referendum last November that removed Same-Sex marriage rights. I'm not sure that there isn't some truth to that, but what really concerns me is the fact that anyone went there to start with. 
American society has become so polarised, so petty, so anti-everybody that this makes news when larger issues get overlooked. You know, things that matter like say, oh how about ENDA, DOMA, DADT? Hell even the economy and joblessness ought to be a larger concern. But nope, it seems that Americans, both Gay and Straight would rather nitpick over shirtless bartenders.