kateordie:Queer couple kicked out of Ontario Tim Hortons Here is the news story at CTV.ca: CLICK H
kateordie: Queer couple kicked out of Ontario Tim Hortons Here is the news story at CTV.ca: CLICK Here is the news story from Xtra.com: CLICK And here’s the short version: A queer couple named Riley and Patricia were sitting in the parking lot of a Tim Hortons in small-town Ontario with their friends and family when the manager accused them of upsetting the customers via their affection for each other, stating that it was ‘above and beyond public displays of affection.’ The manager had been approached by a pastor who had been watching them, a pastor who later held a prayer circle for their poor lost souls in the selfsame parking lot. Tim Hortons is crying foul, saying that the couple were ‘making out’ and essentially causing a scene. You remember when I said they were with friends and family? Yeah. That includes Patricia’s mom. Do you remember the last time you ‘made out’ with your SO in front of your mom? Man, I hope not. What drives me crazy, other than the BLATANT homophobia, is how so many comments sound like this: Well, Tim Hortons was right to kick them out! I don’t want to see a straight couple making out in a public place either! Those people will do anything for attention! I fight my gag reflex. Here’s the thing: I have been straight and I have been gay, if you want to simplify bisexuality, and I have been to a lot of Tim Hortonses. I’m Canadian, after all. I can tell you this: I have seen straight couples making out in them. I’ve seen fat truckers scratching their balls and heard women in sweatshirts with deep chain smoker voices talking about how their gay nephew is going to ruin their daughter’s wedding. I’ve seen pregnant teenagers yelling on their phones about their boyfriends not getting them enough weed and I’ve smelled the homeless people that hang out sifting through the garbage for Roll Up The Rims and leering at teenage girls. Those aren’t generalizations. They are things I have witnessed. What I have never witnessed is a straight couple being asked to leave for exchanging a kiss on the cheek. I’ve seen them wrapped around each other like leeches or maybe even just holding hands, but I’ve never once seen them approached for misbehaviour. Hell, I’ve been in Tim Hortons with my heterosexual gentleman caller and given him hugs, received kisses, and never been threatened with police action. Yeah, the Tim Hortons manager threatened to call the cops. I shit you not. What I have been is assaulted for kissing girls. The ultimate bisexual guilt is ‘passing’ - that is, not having to deal with prejudice while in a heterosexual relationship - and I get it because I know what it’s like to sit in a coffee shop holding hands with a lady I love and getting the stank-eye from half the joint. I know how it feels to have DYKE yelled at me from a passing car/truck/bicycle/person walking on the street, and I remember how the room would drop ten degrees when I reached around the shoulders of my girlfriend in public. You can’t say, straight privileged person, that you’d do the same if the couple were hetero, because you wouldn’t. Unless you were witnessing actual penetration at a Starbucks, you wouldn’t say shit. So to the people claiming that Patricia and Riley “must be exaggerating” the situation, you’re wrong and you’ll never understand how wrong you are because you don’t know what it’s like and you never will, okay? I try so hard to believe the good in people, but stuff like this makes it damn hard sometimes. -- source link