A gay Chicago couple is suing a cab company and one of its drivers for allegedly kicking them out of his cab for kissing.
The men are seeking compensatory damages in their suit.
(NBC)
On a stormy night in May, Steven White
and Matthew McCrea were in a cab heading into the city from O’Hare
International Airport, sharing a giggle over a silly YouTube video, when
McCrea leaned in and kissed his boyfriend.
A moment later, cab driver Jama Anshur
began turning the interior lights on and off, telling his passengers,
“This is public transportation.” Then, according to the couple, the
driver swerved off the Kennedy Expy. and demanded the couple get out —
on the shoulder, in the pelting rain.
“My initial reaction was that I was
afraid of this man, and I didn’t know what he was thinking,” said White,
29, of West Hollywood, Calif., who at the time was visiting McCrea, a
Lake View resident. “Matt’s initial reaction was that we are not getting
out of this cab on the expressway.”
On Monday, White and McCrea filed a
complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, claiming cabbie
Anshur and his company at the time, Sun Taxi, discriminated against
them.
Anshur, a cabbie for eight years, told
the Chicago Sun-Times he wasn’t kicking out his passengers when he
pulled off the freeway. He was annoyed because they wouldn’t stop
kissing.
“I told them to stop,” said Anshur. “It
was raining. I couldn’t drive with something like that. I have to drive
safely because it’s raining.”
The couple deny they were engaged in anything but a very brief kiss. And they say their ordeal didn’t end there.
Anshur then swerved back into traffic,
before eventually pulling into a grocery parking lot in Park Ridge, the
couple say. White called 311 on his cell phone and was eventually
connected to 911. The complaint alleges the cab driver told arriving
police that his passengers had been “making sex” in his cab — something
White and McCrea strongly deny.
No arrests were made, and the couple got out of the cab and waited for another one to come pick them up.
“It was a scary situation,” said McCrea.
“You feel helpless. I can’t control what someone else does. When you
see that kind of behavior, you’re nervous [and think], what’s going on
here?”
Back in May, a spokesman for Anshur’s cab company, Sun Taxi, said he hadn’t seen the complaint Monday and had no comment.
Jong Lee, Sun Taxi’s general manager, said the cab driver was released “right after the incident.” so the company fires the cab driver and the gay terrorists still sue them
Anshur said he’s been treated unfairly.
He says he doesn’t like any sort of prolonged smooching — gay or
straight — in his cab. And he says his passengers on that May night were
rude to him.
“They say, you are the driver,” said
Anshur, who said he now drives for Yellow Cab. “Your job is to drive.
Turn around and drive.”
Yellow Cab officials were not available to comment.
Though Anshur says he’s not anti-gay, he says he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman.
“That’s my religion,” Anshur said.
The couple, who have been engaged in
their long-distance relationship for about eight months, is, among other
things, seeking “compensatory and other damages,” according to the
complaint, filed by Lambda Legal, a national civil rights organization
that advocates for the LGBT community.
“We just hope to bring some attention to
this issue in the hopes that it doesn’t happen to other people,” White
said. “We’re really lucky that in the State of Illinois, the LGBT
community is protected, and so these kinds of things shouldn’t be
happening.”
Until the incident in May, the couple hadn’t given much thought to brief displays of affection in public.
“Unfortunately, now I kind of have to
think about this stuff,” McCrea said. “I might be a little more cautious
about how I act around other people in a cab.”
White says he refuses to change his behavior.
“We’re a couple just like any other couple,” White said. notice what they really want
(Chicago Sun Times) highlights mine
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