Bigotry against gay people is alive and kicking in the US. 2 girls kicked off bus for kissing!
When I first saw the headline on the drudge report, I thought that the girls had been kicked off a school bus for kissing. That would have been totally acceptable since most schools don't tolerate makeout sessions n the bus home. However, I was shocked to find out that two teenaged girls had been kicked off a CITY BUS (one that they had paid to ride) and they had been degraded by the bus driver too!!! He screamed at the poor girls calling them "sickos".
Ugh. You know what, I don't care if your religion teaches you homosexuality is wrong. Just keep it to yourself.
I hope these poor girls sue the butts off the city!
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Additionally, they were causing people to complain.
Perhaps the best course of action would have been for the bus driver to tell them to stop, but that probably wouldn't have worked out either.
Hardly bigoted. Most likely not about religion either.
There is nothing wrong with kissing on a bus. Groping would be the step in which you would need to leave as I understand it.
I am not really sure how I feel on issues like this, but my understanding seems like a reasonable conclusion.
Interesting to say the least.
from a legal standpoint, shouldn't this fall under freedom of expression? Therefore, shouldn't it be considered acceptable?
as for the bus driver telling them to get off, isn't that against public transportation laws or something?
"Removing the girls from the bus was not consistent with our policy," said TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen. "I want to reiterate that we welcome all riders on our system."
Wait...TriMet?
This happened in MY FUCKING TOWN?
Shit...
So much for Portland's rep as a lesbian Mecca.
Scio...
I guess I missed the law that deemed 14-year-olds unable to kiss. Last time I checked - two teens kissing ISN'T illegal. If it was just the fac that two teens were kissing, it would have been handled differently and you know that. The bus driver NEVER would have demeaned them by ordering them off the bus while screaming that they were disgusting.
Fact of the matter is this - there is no law saying the girls can't kiss. There is no bus company rule against it. There was no reason for the bus driver to do what he did. He would not have done the same with a straight couple of teens.
Please don't bring up the other passengers - they need to mindtheir own business. What they wanted should have never been an issue. After all, if a group of racists gets on the bus and wants the minorities to get off - would the driver have thrown the minorities off while screaming that they were disgusting?
It's freaking ridiculous now to sit back and call this some kind of anti-gay issue, or hate crime, or talk about suing the city. These kids got what they deserved - and what they were asking for.
I'm sorry the driver caved into what the public is generating, by apologizing.
Guess, what, folks? None of us were on that bus. We don't know that the girls were "trying to make a scene". We don't know what the bus driver actually said, or what tone he said it with. We don't know that he "screamed" at the girls. The only people who really know what went down are the other people on that bus, and their testimony is colored by shoddy memories and their own prejudices and agendas.
It really does sound, however, like the driver handled this poorly, regardless if the girls were innocently kissing or demonstratively making out. Even if it had been two hetero teens, the driver over-reacted and created a controversy.
Still, I'm inclined to side with the teens, here. I've witnessed plenty of rude, obscene, distracting and disruptive behavior from young people on buses, and I've NEVER seen anybody kicked off.
I guess my 48 years of personal exposure gives me a little tiny bit of insight. I could tell you stories for months to back up my opinion. You simply have an opinion. Not less valid than mine, just less informed. My god yes, 14 year old kids are just so politically motivated. They are nothing but puppets for the ACLU aren't they. When straight kids do it is it just to make other people uncomfortable or are they just acting like 14 year olds. Oh, and Schomer, I believe the public opinion matters when you work for the public. I don't believe the Bus Driver's oath includes upholding the moral standards of the passengers. Remember when another passenger was pissing off the other riders on the bus. I believe her name was Rosa Parks. She was just tired. They are just kids. Neither of them deserve to be treated so shitty by a bus driver who is being paid to drive a bus, not dispense moral directives.
There are so many things wrong with what you said, I don't know where to begin. You need to realize that telling people they "simply have an opinion" and that your personal exposure gives you a "tiny bit of insight" is rude, and meaningless to the merits of the discussion.
Further, who are you to tell anyone they are "less informed" when you have shown an inability to understand the arguments other people give.
Then you bring up strawmen, "My god yes, 14 year old kids are just so politically motivated. They are nothing but puppets for the ACLU aren't they.", and continue on to compare a completely different scenario to Rosa Parks which doesn't even remotely have a reasonable comparison point.
And yet, I agree with the basic premise. I would suggest you work on being more informed on how to discuss issues rationally. You do not need to use deceptive practices to get across your point if the argument is reasonable. Which in this case it is.
It does nothing to your case to be sarcastic and rude, merely divert the topic and put off people. You'd do well to use some of those "48 years of personal experience" to ask yourself if you've ever been convinced by anyone talking to you in that way.
Dismissed. Go defend your fagbashers. As KatieKat says " Bigotry against gay people alive and kicking in the US". As I said, I hope the two little girls do ok. Ain't nothing but a kiss.
True, it may be heinous and downright depressing, but that's the freedom of speech.
Besides, after viewing notq's blog, he seems a rather passive centrist who discusses rather rationally. Wouldn't hurt to extend the same courtersy.
Gentlemen,
I respect the fact that you are both expressing your opinions, Debates tend to walk a fine line of civil conversation and argument. It is the amount of personal; connection we feel to an issue that tends to send a rational conversation spiraling into argument. We just all need to realize a couple of things here.
1. Yep. The girls may have been trying to get attention. Teens do that. Do we respond by throwing them - straight or gay - off a public bus? Not for kissing. The only thing that gets people thrown off a public bus is sex or violence. The girls were doing neither.
2. Is the bus driver allowed to feel revulsion. Yes! We cannot dictate the feelings that people feel. If you find some spiritual or religious need to hate gay people, feel free to do so. However, you cannot expect to inflict your religious expectations on those around you. This bus driver not only acted on his own behalf - he acted as an official of the city and the bus company. He used his position to humiliate these girls and that is wrong.
3. Yes, the passengers of the bus had the right to feel uncomfortable. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that their discomfort legitimizes the girls removal from the bus and humiliation. I am regularly made uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean I am allowed to eliminate every offender. If we had that right, the KKK, neoNazis, Al Sharpton, George W Bush, Catholics, hardline extremist evangelicals, male chauvenists, Paris Hilton and host of others would be instanly eliminated from the world for making people uncomfortable.
This man, acting in an official position that represents the city, not only removed the girls from the bus for something that every teenager on the planet does - he humiliated them too. Totally uncalled for.
Oy. Vey.
It's not about the law. It's about a standard of polite behavior in public. Would you like your young son to be exposed to that sort of behavior? At his age I am sure he has internalized the idea that men and women are the default setting for couples, so would you like to explain to him why those two girls were kissing? I know I'd like to avoid that with any kids I might have. Headache.
I think that there have been times - when someone was being loud and obnoxious, or making out, or being creepy, or whatever - when most of us would be happy to have the only person in any semblance of authority on that bus, the driver, stop the bus and boot the troublemaker.
The fact of it is that someone complained, which means this wasn't just a quick peck on the lips or something discrete. The bus driver went overboard, fine. But the girls were wrong to act that way in public.
Just because heterosexuals do it and aren't addressed isn't the point. They should be thrown off the damn bus too. I don't like peep shows.
And for God's sake, stop comparing gays to blacks. Blacks are a color, homosexuality is an action. Nobody has to broadcast their sexual proclivities to anybody, gay or straight. That's another standard of behavior that has been left by the wayside.
And if somebody hasn't brought up the whole "well if it offends you then don't look" thing...nuh-uh. Not when it's in public. If I can change the channel or something, that's one thing, do what you like and leave me alone. But, if I'm on a bus or on public property, keep your tongue to yourself and wait til you get home.
And not every teenager in the world kisses someone of the same sex. Probably no more than 2% do that. HARRRUMPH!
Anyway, my standpoint is that the bus driver shouldn't have made a scene and the girls shouldn't have been kissing in public. Basically, I'm arguing for a polite solution. It's impolite to be so affectionate in public and it's impolite to scream at people in public.
But I agree, 14 year olds were probably just stupid.
"And for God's sake, stop comparing gays to blacks. Blacks are a color, homosexuality is an action."
Using the Lord's name in vain and reducing the beautiful complexity of his children's lives to sex acts? Jesus wept.
Allow me... well actually civil rights pioneers Coretta Scott King, Bayard Rustin, et al to show you the light.
Kisses,
John
I disagree with Mrs. King's views on the issue. I find the comparison between those of a certain ethnic/racial background and those who are inclined to perform certain acts which define their identity to be spurious, tenuous, and other -ous words. Dangerous, maybe.
I do think it's a cheap ploy, and I don't buy it. And one sees it so often as a conservative half-troll. I rather think my use of the Lord's name was not quite in vain, being borne of frustration with an immoral world and its obtuse reasoning. And reducing the homosexual person to their sin is wrong, yes, but I was not addressing individuals. I was addressing homosexuality itself as compared to blackness itself.
And that was my real point anyway.
OK...I will not address the issue of comparing minorities and homosexuals in any other way but this - neither group chooses to be who they are, they are born that way. I believe in civil rights and equality for everybody. So that includes homosexuals. This stance is not up for debate because I will not change that position.
Now...onto my son seeing to women kiss. LOL, my son saw two women kissing from day one. My aunt is a lesbian and has been with her partner for 30 years. They are very open and they act like any other couple in our family, I don't have to explain it because he understands that most people like the opposite sex but God made some to like the same sex. HE could care less. My friends was worried like you are but her son saw my aunt and her partner kissing at our fireworks party. She didn't know what to say at first, but I explained it and he was cool with it. It comes down to YOUR comfort level and ability to talk to your child and I can talk about anything with my son - sex, sexual identity, menstrual cycles, bullies, he comes to me with everything.
NOW...Pda (Public Displays of Affection). I am for them to a point. A kiss, a hug, a caress, loving glances and other gestures of love between ANY couple are fine. I would much rather see an act of love over the uncaring cruelty we normally see in this world. I do agree that heavy making out is annoying and I personally don't condone it. The bus drive could have POLITELY asked them to stop and that would have been an appropriate action when it comes to ANY set of kissing teens, but he chose to eject them from the bus (was their fare returned?) while verbally assaulting and degrading them.
You can say they were annoying people all you want but fact of the matter is this - they never would have been treated like that if it had been a straight teen couple.
You know....if people paid this much attention to their surroundings when people are being hurt, the world would be a much better place.
PS...Liberals create an issue? Sorry but this moderate sees both liberals and radical republicans doing the same thing... How about forcing a anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot to drive homophobic/republican leaning voters to the polls in a state that ALREADY bans gay marriage just to get a half-wit elected President???? (LOL, thats what the GOP did to get Michigan Republicans to the ballots)
By the way, I just caught the mother of one of the girls on the bus and she said what her daughter was doing on the bus was clearly inappropriate. Nice to see that.
I thought I was a moderate too, once. They don't really exist. They are just fairy tales made up to frighten baby politicians.
The right and the left just wish moderates were fairytales, unfortunately many people claim to be moderates who really are not, instead they are trying to fit in on both sides or they dont understand what a true moderate is, but that is beside the point.
Back to the issue, the bus driver over reacted and acted like heel, it wasnt his place to berate the teens even if they were acting like brats at the most it was ok for him to request they stop and then if they didnt politely ask them to leave the bus. Wether they were hetersexual or not shouldnt matter. The behavior wasnt acceptable in public. Id disagree with the view that this only happened because they were gay. Ive heard to many people complain about the same thing when it comes to hetersexual couples being overly affectionate in public, the only difference is the media found it news worthy because it was a gay teen couple where as if it were a hetersexual couple we probably wouldnt of heard a word about it from the media.