A gay bar in Melbourne has been given an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act in a landmark ruling which will allow the venue to refuse entry to heterosexuals.
The owners of Collingwood's Peel Hotel, which received complaints in April for promoting a gay Anzac Day party, successfully argued to the state planning tribunal that banning heterosexuals from the club would prevent "sexually based insults and violence".
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Deputy President Cate McKenzie claimed allowing straight men and women into the club would defeat the purpose of the venue.
McKenzie claims straight women go to the club because they find the gay patrons entertaining.
"To regard the gay male patrons of the venue as providing an entertainment or spectacle to be stared at, as one would at an animal at a zoo, devalues and dehumanises them," she said.
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