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submitted 2 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 22 points 2 months ago

There is never a reason for either party to escalate a verbal disagreement to a physical one, but I would be very shocked if the PDA were as innocent as they imply it was for someone to walk out from behind the counter and calmly ask them to knock it off. There are always two sides to every altercation, and even his description, "kind of briefly - we began to kiss" sounds like downplaying the degree of the kissing going on. It sounds like there was a good chance that it was a pretty excessive makeout session. They really seem to want to make it a homophobia thing, and maybe it was... whether the employees' line for excessive would have been the same for a straight couple as for this gay one, I don't know. But I wouldn't be shocked if the request was at least arguably reasonable for a business that doesn't need people sucking face at the counter. Or maybe I'm wrong and the entire restaurant staff in left-leaning Washington DC are just a bunch of homophobes. Idk.

[-] Vespair@lemm.ee 18 points 2 months ago

Even a full-on gay orgy in the dead center of the restaurant is no excuse for violence.

But beyond that, people who are bothered by PDA are so fucking lame. You really want a sterile, sexless world devoid of passion and expressions of love? I think that sounds so fucking miserable

[-] RedditSucks88@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I agree with you but the place of business has every right to ask them to leave. If they don't leave or start arguing back what else are they supposed to do to get them to leave? How is that different than a bouncer in a club?

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Call the cops and have them trespassed. You shouldn't put hands on someone unless there's immediate danger.

[-] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's an awkward position to be in these days, wanting someone out of your establishment. I'd argue that calling the police on a homeless / queer / brown / black / trans person is recklessly gambling with their life. If you want them off your property but don't want them killed, you're not left with a lot of options. I don't have a solution here, I just want to highlight that the degradation of public institutions in the US has gotten to the point that you really can't just casually phone the cops unless you're comfortable with the possibility of some blood on your hands.

[-] Malfeasant@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

Oh, so you want them killed?

[-] Vespair@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

To a degree they do. Businesses have the right to refuse service, but not if doing so appears to be targeting somebody for discriminatory reasons. Since the impetus here seems to be the kiss between two men, if they aren't asking opposite-sex couples who engage in the same to leave then this actually is not a legal request. There's some context here that is impossible to know, so frankly I'm not really keen to make a clear determination one way or the other personally, but I still wanted to point out that it's not really automatically as simple as "the business asked them to leave."

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this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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