03/22/2007
Dallas-Area Gay Bar Mable Peabody's Destroyed in Arson Blaze
Intruders vandalized, robbed, and set Mable Peabody's Beauty Parlor and Chainsaw Repair ablaze in Denton, Texas early Wednesday, destroying it. The gay bar has been around for decades, reports the Dallas Morning News:
"Margaret Honeycutt opened the club 27 years ago, Ms. Sanders said. Back then, she said, it was a brave move to open a club for gay men and women. Ms. Sanders said she has had no trouble and has no idea who might have set the fires. Ms. Sanders said that when she bought the club, she came up with the unusual name with the help of "a lot of wine." She wants to reopen, she said, but it's too soon to know what she will do. 'I think I lost my identity along with my business,' she said."
Sanders, who has owned Mable Peabody's for 13 years, says she has no idea why the club was targeted: "They broke in and took liquor and threw chairs all over the place. They destroyed the whole bar before they burned it. I wonder if it could have been a gay-bashing deal. I have no idea."
Blaze at Gay Club Ruled Arson [dallas morning news]
Posted 10:10 AM EST by Andy Towle in Crime, Dallas, Gay Bar, News, Nightlife | Permalink
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Sad turn of events for a place with such a great name!
Unfortunately, I'm sure this will launch an avalanche of Texas-hating posts...
Posted by: Bryant | Mar 22, 2007 2:34:11 PM
I actually live in Denton and had been to Mable's a couple times. It's very sad that this happens. It's acually the only gay bar/club in this area. The closest ones are in Dallas and Ft Worth.
And I completely understand if people Texas bash. There is good reason. The vast majority of the state sucks and you can't throw a stone without hitting and rabid conservative ignorant bigot unless you live in central Dallas, Austin, or maybe Houston (I don't know, I've never actually spent any time there).
Don't believe all the rural-idealizing apologists. Most of the south really does suck. The laid back simple life is a great idea. The country is great. Farming and ranching are great. The isolationist attitudes are not. We have not come to a point in America where the rural south has overcome that mindset. Not every rural, country local shares this mindset so don't rationalize it as inevitable. But I think the younger generations may have a chance of reversing it.
Posted by: JLuv | Mar 22, 2007 3:17:09 PM
Nice to have that perspective, Jluv. I would agree that all of rural America is plagued with bigotry, including Texas. That includes rural New York, judging from other articles posted on Andy's blog today.
I live in Houston, which of course has its share of acceptance and tolerance problems. Anyone who thinks they live in a completely enlightened city where things like this don't happen needs to be reading the news a little more closely.
Posted by: Bryant | Mar 22, 2007 3:31:05 PM
I don't know about this. The owner seems oblivious to what might be the motive. She knew it was dangerous to own a gay bar yet she has a lot of 'I don't know whys'.
If it truly is a targeted looting then I feel sorry for her.
Posted by: Jack! | Mar 22, 2007 3:38:24 PM
Correction: I misused the word isolationist. I don't think there is a good terminoly for what I actually mea. I'm trying to refer to attitudes that include idealising isolating or segregating ones self and community that have any significant variance with ones own beliefs, traditions, customs, and social norms. Is there a good way to describe this without reverting to loaded terms like chau·vin·ism (n.
1. Militant devotion to and glorification of one's country; fanatical patriotism.
2. Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one's own gender, group, or kind: "the chauvinism . . . of making extraterrestrial life in our own image" Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr.)
or in·tol·er·ance ( 2. intolerance - unwillingness to recognize and respect differences in opinions or beliefs).
I sometimes use the term dog·ma·tism (n.
Arrogant, stubborn assertion of opinion or belief.) but this isn't describing the actual mindset that I believe is the problem. Theres also fanaticism, zealotry - excessive intolerance of opposing views; but that doesn't get to the heart of it eaither. The real problem is a strange, consistent, and excessive negative reaction towards social change/variation and the expression of different social norms.
PS-- in the first post I was exhibiting the definition of intolerance for inflamatory purposes. It can also be considered baiting.
Posted by: JLuv | Mar 22, 2007 3:40:01 PM
Hey Bryant. Good to hear from ya. Yeah, my dad's side of the family is from rural Ohio, so the bigoted rural mentality is definitely dispersed all over. However in red states you simply have more of a dominance of it. I don't think bigotry is essential to rural communities, or conservatism, or the republican party. However that doesn't negate the fact that in contemporary culture it's not only accepted but idealized in these communities. People get to choose whether they accept it or not and their affiliated community ties will follow. You can argue that the mindset is not dominant in Texas overall or that it is in the state of New York overall but I'm willing to call BS.
Posted by: John H | Mar 22, 2007 3:49:40 PM
PS- There are also rural communities in the Northeast, West, and Midwest that not only reject these attitudes but are liberal in their embrace of people's differences. There are certainly religious movements that have existed since the begining of this nation (including Quakers) who have built these open-ended communities in both rural and urban areas without feeling the need to resort to excessive forms of segregation. This is a tradition and social norm that is cultural and it is firmly rooted in the south more so than any other region. I don't think people should simply ignore this.
Posted by: JLuv | Mar 22, 2007 3:59:38 PM
Uh oh, sounds like bigots nation are getting more and more desperate as what they can do to scare the gay community..
Well, I have a big relevation for you about our kind, and it comes by way of a lyric by the fiercely talented bad girl of pop Christina Aguilera:
"Nobody can hold us down
(Hold us down)
Nobody can hold us down
(Hold us down)
Never can, never will!!"
(repeat several times for emphasis)
Posted by: Da | Mar 22, 2007 4:16:19 PM
Bryant,
Your initial post bemoans what you seem to think of as a bias against Texas. But I think Texas itself is responsible for that bias. Like most of the south, Texas is the sort of place where outsiders and non-comformists are held at arm's length.
My own experience with Texas was as a participant (twice) in the Texas AIDS Ride. After having participated previously in the California AIDS Ride, I travelled to Texas expecting the same sort of reception from Texans as AIDS riders receive in California. I expected people along the route to ask us for what cause we were riding and then smile and offer words of encouragement when they heard we were riding to raise money to help people living with HIV/AIDS. I expected schools to allow their students to put notes on the bikes of HIV positive participants wishing them a safe journey. I expected the occasional church to open it's doors to us to provide a place to pray and contemplate our purpose...or simply to get out of the hot sun for a few minutes.
Instead, we were met with stony silences when people asked us what our cause was and we informed them we were raising money to help Texans who were living with HIV/AIDS. On more than one occasion, people immediately turned their backs and walked away without a word when I told them I was riding to help people living with HIV/AIDS. Not one school allowed their children to line the route to cheer us on as happens almost daily on 'The Ride' in California. The reception we received in Texas was quite different than what I'd experienced in California. In California, the AIDS Ride is welcomed into communties as heroes. In Texas, we were treated like pariahs who were best avoided.
From what I can see, Texas deserves its reputation as a place of intolerance.
Sure, Austin is great. And I suppose Dallas and Houston are far less intolerant than the rest of the state. But, as a whole, Texas was a totally different, and negative, experience.
And lest you think I'm simply biased against the south because I have never lived there and don't understand southern ways, you should know that I spent the first 17 years of my life in a town of three hundred people in Georgia that was located an hour away from the nearest supermarket or theater. After that, I attended college in Athens, GA and then spent two years in Atlanta before I got out of the south. I know the south as intimately as you do.
xo
peterparker
Posted by: peterparker | Mar 22, 2007 8:32:48 PM
One more thing Bryant. After I posted, I suddenly recalled an experience on the California AIDS Ride that further solidifies my opinion of Texas as a place of great intolerance. One day, I was sitting at a table in a restaurant having stopped for lunch with several other people participating in the AIDS Ride. A family with a few kids ranging from probably age 8-14 who were sitting near us. They struck up a conversation and explained that they were tourists and wanted to know about some of the tourist destinations in southern California. We were happily offering our impressions of Disneyland, Universal City, etc... After a while, the mother asked us if we were competing in some sort of bike race. We responded to her question by saying that it wasn't a race, but rather a bike ride to raise money for charity. She asked what charity we were supporting. We told her we were riding to raise money for organizations benefitting people with HIV/AIDS. Immediately, the conversation came to a halt. The family quickly finished their meal and left. Wanna guess which state they lived in? That's right...Texas!
Posted by: peterparker | Mar 22, 2007 8:44:30 PM
This was not the first time. When I lived in Denton I was such a regular at the bar that Kelly would let me bar-tend sometimes. The first time was a Christmas party a few years back. God that was a crazy night. Mable's has been broken into time and time again. Usually they would just steal some beer and go but sometimes they would trash things. Kelly knows that it was a case of gay bashing but I know her and she is just in total shock. She loved that bar as if it was her child. I am flying down to Dallas in a few weeks and one of the first places I was going to go was Mable's for a few drinks with some really good people. All of Kelly's friends will not let her not rebuild. Mable Peabody's will be back and better than ever.
Posted by: Matt | Mar 25, 2007 5:22:55 AM
This is total fucking bullshit. I'm finding anywhere that has something posted about this and challenging every person involved to face me - alone - to see how fucking tough they really are. Some reading this know who I am. I'm the straight guy that joined the gay frat. I'm the one that had to have 5 gay friends tackle me to keep me from beating the shit out of a couple of jocks for calling them "fags".
Open invitation: if you (assholes) are reading this, and it's really you (and not somebody just wanting to start some shit), let's go. I'll kick your asses so hard, you'll WISH you had a dozen gay dudes fucking them.
Fucking hillbillies.
Side note: Denton is actually fairly accepting, for the most part, compared to most other places in Texas. But it still has its share of shit-kickers.
Posted by: Jesse Martin | Mar 27, 2007 2:47:04 AM