Irish Pub Under Fire For Selling Shirts About 'Coming Out' as Gaelic

ashley.rae | March 15, 2017
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(Image source: Facebook)

While Saint Patrick’s Day parades across the country have become a hodgepodge of celebrating Irish heritage and displaying gay pride, one Irish bar is being called “exploitative” for wanting to incorporate a reference to gay pride in its own Saint Patrick’s Day festivities.

Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub, located in Syracuse, N.Y., is selling a shirt that reads, “Mom, Dad... I’m Gaelic” on the front and “Everyone comes out for St. Paddy’s Day 2017″ on the back on its website.

Syracuse.com reports the shirt, which is clearly making a lighthearted joke about the similar pronunciations of the words "gay" and "Gaelic," caused an outrage.

PinkNews, a gay news site, alleges people accused the shirt of being “exploitative” and “cashing in on gay rights with a cheap pun.”

Ty Marshal, a “LGBTQ community activist,” told Syracuse.com the shirt “commercializes a joke about a marginalized group.”

“I do think this was an attempt at a joke, that Coleman's was trying to be ironic,” Marshal explained. “But this commercializes a joke about a marginalized group and it's just not funny."

While Marshal said the shirt is “not funny” because it marginalizes gay people, Jason Galvez, the secretary of CNY Pride, said he views the shirt as a way to “raise awareness.”

"If this were a way to demean and belittle the gay community, obviously we would be against the sale of these shirts," he explained. “Personally, I see this as a way to raise awareness about the gay community in a slightly playful way.”

Galvez said the gay community doesn’t “have to be offended by everything,” since gays have experienced worse things than text on a t-shirt.

"The gay community understandably has a psychological sunburn. It's easy to flinch. We don't have to be offended by everything, but we also endured so much, from electro-conversion therapy to jail to being thrown out of churches," he explained.

However, Galvez still criticized the use of the words “mom” and “dad” on the shirt, because not all families are made up of moms and dads.

He asked, "What about two moms or two dads?"

In a statement issued on Facebook, Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub apologized for those who were offended by the shirt. Dennis Coleman, the manager of the pub, said the shirt was meant to be a “tongue-in-cheek commentary on society”:

It has been brought to our attention that the t-shirt Coleman’s produced for St. Patrick’s Day has offended some members of the LGBT community. "It was not our intention to offend anyone,” according to Dennis Coleman. “20 years ago, we would never have considered producing a shirt like this because it was something you didn’t talk about. Things are more open now. It was a tongue-in-cheek commentary on society. But we understand now how some gay people might take offense and for that we apologize. That’s the problem with humor.—what some people can laugh about; other people find offensive.

Coleman also pointed out that, unlike what activists say about the shirt being offensive because it makes a joke about a “marginalized group,” the Irish have also suffered, and the pub has incorporated that into its history:

Dennis Coleman pointed out that Coleman’ shirts are often irreverent. Dennis said, "Another shirt of ours that says, 'Irish, Catholic and Crazy' pokes fun at the the Irish themselves.” For years Coleman’s had a sign posted that said, “No Irish Need Apply” because Irish immigrants were discriminated against when they first came to America.

The pub also noted that, “several years ago,” they invited the “Fagbug,” a local woman who has a gay pride-themed car, to help them with their Green Beer Delivery parade.

Days after issuing the apology, the pub posted another advertisement to buy the shirt.

After reading the statement from Coleman’s, Galvez said, “We don't always need to act on impulse. This whole thing has to be a lesson for the gay and straight communities and for Coleman's, to be sensitive and respectful.”

Marshal, however, maintained the shirt is offensive and will somehow be used to “express homophobia.”

"I think some people will buy this shirt just to express homophobia," he stated. "That concerns me. What kind of message are we sending? They attempted to make a joke, but it came across as trivializing and tasteless."

Marshal said he would buy a shirt as long as proceeds are donated to LGBTQ activist organizations, but otherwise, he’ll reconsider frequenting the pub.

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