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.
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.
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
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?
