They came in here calling us faggots, trying to get some of the customers to fight them. They were welcome to come here and drink. Several blocks away, Equus coowner Rick Holloway, who got a blackened eye in the incident, said, "We never bothered them. All I can say is that after this, the gays better watch out." "The guys in the barracks are pretty upset about all this gay stuff. "Gays are out trying to pick up dates," he said. The Marine, from a small town in New York, asked not to be named.
"Gays have been bothering some (Marine) joggers in the morning," said a young Marine, angry and combative, sipping beer several days later at a bar near the Marine Barracks at 8th and I streets Se. There were no incidents.įor some, the battle lines had been formally drawn. Civil Rights Commission made appearances at the bar and a couple of Marine officers in civilian clothes drove around the area watching for possible trouble. Representatives of the mayor's office and the U.S.
Marines - Leathernecks, America's toughest fighting men on the other side, proud, out-of-the-closet gay men determined not to be humiliated or defeated.Ī rally at the bar last night drew a large crowd. police arrived in force to quell the disturbance, an incident among strangers had grown into a showdown of will and threatened masculinity.
GAY BARS WASHINGTON DC 16 WINDOWS
One bar owner was punched in the eye, windows were smashed, egos were bruised.īy the time D.C.
16, as late-night diners left the trendy Capitol Hill restaurants along Pennsylvania Avenue SE, five Marines broke from a throng of nearly 150 rowdy people shouting anti-gay slogans and burst into Equus, a homosexual bar and restaurant.Ī brawl broke out amid the name-calling and the yelling.