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ORIGINAL: LadyPact

Thank you for answering, Bear.  Sometimes, the legal matters differ between countries.

I'd still tend to think a supposed verbal slur would be a good bargaining chip if the guy was thinking about any type of prosecution before his arrest.

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ORIGINAL: beargonewild

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ORIGINAL: opposingtwilight

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ORIGINAL: Madame4a


It is surprising how much gays and lesbians bring up hatred in others...

funnily enough, two lesbians were left beaten... the man wasn't .. was he?  They might have said something, but the response he gave was unwarranted, in any context...and clearly out of proportion

We don't know if he was beaten or not. I highly doubt these two women just layed down and let him beat the crap out of them without lifting a finger. I also find it hard to believe that they did absolutely nothing to provoke him ...

I am disgusted by this whole thing for several reasons; adults acting like children, for one thing. Also, the fact that the women are playing the gay card -and- the female card. Growing up I saw lots of little boys told never to hit a girl but I never saw a girl told never to hit a boy.

Its almost ingrained in our heads ... A man hits two women--THAT MONSTER! Now add in the gay card and its ... A man brutalized two helpless women because they were lesbians! THAT MONSTER!!!!!!

They were all adults and they all behaved badly. They were all wrong.

opposingtwilight: before you start ignoring the fact, had you bothered to click the link to the original story? Here is a quote from the original:

Tuesday November 11, 2008 CityNews.ca Staff A routine day became anything but for parents outside an Oshawa elementary school last Monday. As Anji Dimitriou walked from the parking lot towards her six-year-old son, police say a man approached her. Her girlfriend, Jane Currie (pictured), was watching from their truck. According to the women, he asked Dimitriou, "Which one of you two men spoke to my kid?" He allegedly called the couple "f***ing dyke lesbians."
Now, you tell me how this aggravated assault isn't crossing the line into a prejudicial slur and hate crime? It is one thing to physically assault another because they spat on you or they were retaliating against a perceived threat from you, yet to start slinging prejudicial slurs against a same sex couple is a whole new ball game. I can guarantee that if a man pulled that same bullshit on you, you'd be the first to pull the female card against your attacker. Maybe if you walked in our shoes for a month and see that living life as a gay man or a lesbian woman is no effin bed of roses at times. I live in a city of 58,000 and Oshawa has approx 146000 people. It is a damn shame that in a city 3X the sze as mine something such as that had to happen. The cold hard truth is homophobia happens in every damn city, town and village on this planet. And it's attitudes like yours which makes me really wonder about the mentality of humans.

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ORIGINAL: opposingtwilight

But if he walked up to them and demanded to know which of them said something to his kid, chances are SOMETHING -was- said to his kid.

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ORIGINAL: camille65

It isn't that they 'happen' to be lesbians that they were beaten, it was because they are lesbians they were beaten. 

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ORIGINAL: opposingtwilight

I know its hard to be gay but guess what? Everyone's life is hard for some reason or another. Everyone has some cross to bear. Not once have I said what he did was OK or right or even less wrong than it really is. I do think that it is wrong to try and scream HATE CRIME just because the women happened to be lesbians and when I read the article, thats how it felt to me. The emphasis was not put on the fact that this was done in a school yard, in front of children (which to me seems like the bigger travesty here) but it was put on the fact that the victims were lesbians and the attacker was a man.
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ORIGINAL: opposingtwilight

According to the very one sided article ...

...

What caused him to snap? I understand some people are insanely homophobic. My mother happens to be one of those people. I understand that homophobic people sometimes do horrible, awful things to people who either are or are perceived to be homosexual. However, most of these same homophobic people are also cowards to the enth degree.

They will gather together in their hateful little groups or they will do something under cover of darkness or in a private place where they are not likely to be seen. They do not attack people in public places like school yards ... Unless they are somehow provoked to the point where they see red and just snap.

So what caused him to snap?

Gee, could it have been something that they said? Possibly to his kid? No, we do not know if it was a racial slur or if he came up with that little detail when it became apparent he was going to be in big trouble for this. But if he walked up to them and demanded to know which of them said something to his kid, chances are SOMETHING -was- said to his kid.

I think any parent, regardless of sexual orientation, will agree that when it comes to people saying or doing something to or in regards to your offspring, you see red and are liable to do things you would not ordinarily do. That doesn't make it a hate crime. It does not excuse his actions either though.

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ORIGINAL: opposingtwilight

They will gather together in their hateful little groups or they will do something under cover of darkness or in a private place where they are not likely to be seen. They do not attack people in public places like school yards ... Unless they are somehow provoked to the point where they see red and just snap.