Before today, the Steak & Catfish Barn was just a popular fried food paradise enjoyed by Oklahoma City locals and whose only real claim to fame was being featured on an episode of "Man vs. Food" with Adam Richman. But that all changed when the restaurant's owner, Bob Warner, posted a sign clarifying his bathroom policy:
"WE DO NOT HAVE A TRANSGENDER BATHROOM.
SO DON'T BE CAUGHT IN THE WRONG ONE.
THANK YOU, BOB"
Despite having never actually visited the restaurant in question, Paula Schonauer, a transgender Oklahoma City resident, was outraged by Bob's "implied threat." Per NBC:
“I was disturbed,” Schonauer said. “It was really a let down.”
She said the message is discriminatory and the last sentence scares her.
“That sign has an implied threat and a threat that’s very real to me,” Schonauer said.
“You’ve got this sign implying a threat of potential violence against somebody for going to pee. That’s not the Oklahoma standard. That’s not what it means to be American. That’s just wrong,” Troy Stevenson, with Freedom Oklahoma, said.
Of course, the real story here is that the sign had been posted at the restaurant for 10 full months without an issue before NBC was tipped off...which, hardly sounds like the national crisis that our politicians have made it out to be.
Meanwhile, when confronted by NBC on the issue, Bob simply implied he, like about 99% of the rest of the population, couldn't care less about the bathroom politics consuming 75% of liberal D.C. politicians' time these days and was just trying to prevent anyone from getting roughed up by the "redneck guys" that frequent his fine establishment.
Restaurant owner Bob Warner told NewsChannel 4 his sign is not a threat, just a warning.
“We have a lot of redneck guys that come in here. Truck drivers and everything. They’re big husky guys and I said ‘man alive!’ If their wife or their little girl walked in that bathroom and a man followed them in there, I wouldn’t have a restaurant,” Warner said.
He said the intent of his message is to protect his property and customers, including those who are transgender.
“I don’t want to see nobody hurt,” Warner said.
Apparently those "redneck guys" don't subscribe to the notion that people get to casually choose their gender...that kind of backwards mentality is so six months ago.