A gay couple who traveled from Portland, Ore. to Albuquerque to attend the city’s Pride festival found themselves transported to the Dark Ages when they boarded a shuttle bus at the airport and were ordered by the driver to sit in the back after he saw them holding hands.
As KRQE reports, Ron McCoy and Chris Bower arrived in New Mexico’s largest city on June 28, which it should be noted was two days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA and rejected California’s Proposition 8, and were shocked to find themselves discriminated against after they boarded the shuttle and found seats near the front.
McCoy recalled the driver looking at the two men as they held hands and he immediately appeared to become angry. “He just blurted out at me, he goes, “’Okay, if you’re going to do that, you’re going to the back of the bus.'”
When the shuttle stopped, the two men complied with the driver’s order to move to the back of the bus, but not before questioning the driver’s motives.
“I said, ‘I think it was because you didn’t like the fact that I was holding my partner’s hand.’ He goes, ‘See, now you’re telling on yourself.’ My partner responds, ‘Well, that’s discrimination,’ and the driver responds, ‘You’re telling on yourself again,’” McCoy said.
Bernadette Aguirre, a woman who was also on the bus and witnessed the confrontation, quickly defended the couple.
“I told the bus driver that I was completely appalled that anybody would be treated this way,” Aguirre said .
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“And the driver looks back at us and goes, ‘I’ll show you what’s appalling,’ and he points to us,” McCoy said.
Bill Alberti, a manager for Standard Parking, which contracts all shuttle buses for the Albuquerque airport, told KRQE that the driver’s conduct was inappropriate, but that he just “overstepped a little bit.” Alberti revealed that after the incident, all drivers will undertake sensitivity and non-harassment training.
McCoy and Bower said they’ve yet to receive an apology and have filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Watch the KRQE news report below.
Ron Jackson
I think I would have just told the driver to STFU and drive, and mind your own business. What’s he going to do call dispatch and complain? Grow some balls people. You don’t have to put up with it.
Tackle
Props to Bernadette Aguirre for speaking up and telling the driver that his actions were wrong. And Bill Alberti is dead wrong. That driver did not “just overstepped a little “. That clown overstepped by a mile. And should be terminated. And McCoy and Bower, please sue…
boring
The couple would later make fun of the driver’s weight on an internet message board, by the way.
Samuel
As a gay south Asian man in Canada, I was denied service in the local gay leather bar because of my ethnicity as late as July 2013. When I went for a local advertised gay night, the white Canadian gay bartender claimed that they didn’t have “good enough tonic water” in response to my order of a very standard and regular drink.
While i do sympathize with this gay western couple, i think we have other things in the gay world to worry about like the treatment of gays in Russia and Asian gays especially south Asian gays in the West.
[email protected]
Spineless mutherfuxkers don’t get to comply with bigotry and then whine about it. They oughta sit in the back of every bus they ride from now on.
Irony that they were on their way to pride rally.
Nyruinz
Yaaaaaas! This couple is giving us Rosa Parks realness
Tackle
Some of these comments make no sense at all. Fitst, them making fun of someone’s weight at home on the internet is not the same as a paid employee actively practicing discrimination. While a grown adult making fun of another’s weight online is foolish & immature, it’s not breaking any laws. However, what the driver did is against the law. And if gays around the world get pissed & shitted on, discriminated against. Bullied and treated like 3rd class citizens. we’re supposed to just take it and remember, that gays in Russia and Asian gays, especially South Asian gays in the West are suffering such terrible treatment. Give me a fucking break!
Christopher
Rosa Parks REFUSED to go to the back of the bus.And just like blacks of the 50s,Gays now are being beat up,killed,spit on and refered to as 2 nd class citizens.That couple missed their chance to say “Fuck you this ends now!”and sit where the hell they wanted.
boring
@Nyruinz: THREAD OVER, WE’RE NOT GETTING A BETTER POST.
niles
And of course the gay couple meekly moved to the back of the bus. Not exactly a Rosa Parks moment, “guys”.
1EqualityUSA
Please, this fucktard needs to get fired. Sue the company for which he works, insist that he become unemployed, and never acquiesce to bigots again. Put the pride in gay pride and stand up to this bully. With the money you make in the law suit, go on a vacation.
Charli Girl
” You’re gonna look funny driving this bus with the shifter up your ass” but oops Im telling on myself again” lmao ,now move your ass Boy!!!
Why do these people put up with it? When someone is “uncivilized “, being nice isn’t cutting it anymore!
Ottoman
Rosa Parks participated in a staged event. The black people who stood up to the back of the bus rules years and decades before Rosa Parks have been forgotten to history. Claudette Colvin was one of them but she was deemed too dark by the civil rights leades of the time and the fact that she was 15 and pregnant, and allegedly raped, she was passed over as the poster child in favor of the more “acceptable” Ms. Parks. Please try not to be ignorant when comparing these guys to Rosa Parks.
Now they have the opportunity to sue, which they should.
Bee Gaga
Gay people stop being so damn weak and complacent, seriously! Y’all are GROWN ass men and let someone tell you to sit in the back of the bus in 2013, really? Stop being weak asses and stand up for yourselves seriously, I’m barely 18 and I can do a better job than these middle aged men
ronavila
don’t move to the back of the bus! don’t make a scene. just sit there, where you are, you have every right. what’s he gonna do? then file an official complaint.
Dakotahgeo
Sue the bastard bus driver AND the company!!! These sh*ts don’t learn until it costs them a few 100K or millions!
erasure25
@Ron Jackson: Exactly! Why did they even get up and move? Seriously!! I would totally bitch out and scream like a mofo at that bus driver…