Christian Dingus, 28, was with his partner when, he says, employees told the couple not to kiss inside, and the argument escalated outside.
A gay man accused a group of Washington, D.C., Shake Shack employees of beating him after he kissed his boyfriend inside the location while waiting for their order.
Christian Dingus, 28, was with his partner and a group of friends at a Dupont Circle location Saturday night when the incident occurred, he told NBC News. They had put in their order and were hanging around waiting for their food.
“And while we were back there — kind of briefly — we began to kiss,” Dingus said. “And at that point, a worker came out to us and said that, you know, you can’t be doing that here, can’t do that type of stuff here.”
The couple separated, Dingus said, but his partner got upset at the employee and insisted the men had done nothing wrong. Dingus’ partner was then allegedly escorted out of the restaurant, where a heated verbal argument occurred.
It’s saddening to me that the take of “there’s probably more to the story here” is so objectionable. Judgment absolutely should be withheld pending investigation.
It saddening to me to see someone put in the hospital because they kissed their partner. It’s even more saddening that assholes like you want to invalidate that experience with your baseless doubt.
As someone who works retail, customers lie. There’s a million examples of customers who start fights with employees and then pretend to be the victim. Their sexuality doesn’t enter into it.
What’s more likely, a bunch of employees collectively decided to assault a gay customer for no reason? Or a customer was making a scene and then when asked to leave decided to assault an employee and the others had to help?
Seriously? People are attacked, killed, and imprisoned for being gay all over the world today. And how often are random people attacked by minimum wage employees for any other reason? Here’s a hint. Not very often.
You’re being ridiculous. “All over the world” is not relevant; this is Washington DC not Uganda so let’s not hastily generalize. Otherwise you can knee-jerk believe Jussie Smollett.
Let me ask you this; there’s HUNDREDS of videos online, YouTube and world star, about a brawl between a McDonalds employee and a customer. How many of them show the customer at fault, and how many show the employee starting the violence? I know the answer, but clearly you don’t. The answer may surprise you.
Oh, and you bringing Jussie Smollett into this tells me all I need to know. You are a closet homophobe who is looking for any excuse to demonize the gay community. You can fuck right off with that shit. Anyone can find a person that has done something horrible that represents a minority community. The actions of a single person do not mean shit in this context. There were plenty of witnesses that saw the assault.
Let me be very clear. I don’t give a fuck what these guys were doing in the restaurant that night, or how they responded. It is never acceptable for a group of random people to claim vigilante justice and just beat the shit out of two people that didn’t instigate physical violence.
Nice attempt at assumptions, I’m merely trying to tell you that you shouldn’t believe every accusation just because they come from a member of a minority that you love. As a member of another minority I’m obviously against hate crimes and violence, and my skepticism comes from years of cynicism from working in retail and watching angry people try to make up stories to get the manager to fire people because they don’t like being told no by cashiers.
If your mind is made up, then peace.
I bet you tell black people racism is over too, don’t you?
Edit: because I realize you may actually think homophobia is over in more civilized parts of the world, let me remind you of the stabbing in NYC last year that was determined to be a gay hate crime: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/nyregion/oshae-sibley-stabbing-charges.html
This is New York, not Uganda.
Is this wilful ignorance?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acts_of_violence_against_LGBT_people
In Oklahoma, I’m sure it happens multiple times a day. In DC, probably not quite as often.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
If the truth tends be in the middle, then all very right-wing people have to say is “kill all foreigners, make child marriage legal, and give men complete control over their wives, daughters, and female employees.” And someone who judges that, yes, we must look at the middle, will choose the halfway point in-between all or nothing. That will mean:
A very King Solomon approach. Cut everything in half, and see which half (or whole) dies.
We are talking about this case. I very specifically did not say that generally the truth tends to be in the middle. Do not put words in my mouth.
Ah, so when it comes to gay people being beaten up, they’re always partially at fault?
“Ah, so <puts other words in their mouth>”
The shameless dishonesty of some people, lol. Pathetic.
Making up stories just so someone can blame the victims is generally not well received here.
But it’s obviously not the making up stories part that’s bad, who the stories get made up about is far more important.
So, you know the bigotry is wrong, you just celebrate it anyway.