It’s just not safe to be straight anymore. In April, three heterosexual couples were allegedly turned away from a gay hotel in Key West. This wasn’t a matter of no room at the inn. The couples had reservations. But to overnight in this inn, you have to be out or you’re out.

This incident reminds me of an experience I had in Provincetown, a place which, similar to Key West, attracts gay vacationers like wood floors attract dust bunnies. I stayed in a hostelry that catered to lesbians, and the presence of some straight folk raised questions and emotions I’d happily suppressed until now. Dammit.

I think it was six years ago that my then-girlfriend and I headed for a weekend in Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod. I’d been out a few years; she’d been out a few minutes. It was a new, potent relationship, and we were thrilled to be able to be ourselves in public. And in private.

At the same time we checked in, a couple of other couples did too. Hetero couples. One man, one woman, the way God intended. Nine times out of 10, anyway.

I gathered they were in the area for a wedding – presumably a straight one – and needed rooms for the night. They got ’em. I remarked to the butch employee leading my girlfriend and me to our room about the straight people, and I remember she was not enchanted with their presence.

Truth to tell, neither was I. We had so been looking forward to our oasis of a hotel. Now there were sand flies in our oasis. We had wanted complete comfort, and I’m not talking about the quality of the pillows. We wanted safety, freedom, a respite from hyper-vigilance. This was a lesbian hotel! In P-town! Was nothing sacred?

The next morning guests munched on a continental breakfast in the common room as Tracy Chapman’s latest CD wafted through the air. The straights were there, being loud and calling attention to themselves. Geez, was staying in a gay hotel making them hysterical? Or was I simply begrudging them any peep?

Probably some of both. I imagine they were loud to display to us and each other that they weren’t fazed. I wanted them, as befit their intruder status, to be shrinking violets. And maybe grovel a little. I realized they now had a story to laugh about for the rest of their days: “Hey Joe, did I tell you how Sherry and I stayed in a dyke hotel in Provincetown? Christ, they put us in the Martina Navratilova room!”

As far as I know, these folks wanted accommodations for only one night. The people in Key West intended to stay longer, but weren’t allowed to. Interestingly, the three straight couples were vacationing with a gay couple. One of the gays reported that the hotel manager told them “he had to appeal to the majority, and the majority of guests wouldn’t want straight people there.”

Since I’ve now gone public with my unseemly discriminatory impulses of six years ago, I can safely say I understand the view of the gay guests at Big Ruby’s.

However. Discrimination is not the way to go. As we well know, the majority has a nasty habit of tyrannizing the minority. On the rare occasions when gays are the majority, we must remember what’s right and fair.

But if straights who shack up with us prove themselves homophobic jerks, then I say there’s only one thing to do: Get a couple of gay guys to have sex in front of them. That should drive them out of the hotel faster than an ear-splitting fire alarm.