An investigation has been launched into reports that a gay couple were ordered off a London bus by an angry bus driver for sharing a kiss that said driver deemed ‘disgusting’.
“We were chatting away when my partner gave me a peck on the lips,” explained Jack James, 23, to the Evening Standard.
“The bus driver shouted: ‘Oi, you two, don’t do that on my fucking bus or you can get off, I don’t want to watch that’.”
James was initially flabbergasted by this apparent display of shocking homophobia.
“When the bus stopped at our stop I walked up to the driver and politely asked the driver if he was talking to us,” James continued.
“His reply was: ‘Yes, it is my bus, it is my rules and I don’t want to watch that. It’s disgusting. Get off my bus.”
But his tirade was not finished there.
“Once we got off the bus we were fuming and I was shaking,” James explained before the bus stopped and the lovely driver yelled at them that they were not ‘real men’ and that they should ‘fuck off’. Charming, right?
Transport for London have not been particularly pleased with the reports suggesting that one of their bus drivers is an abusive, homophobic nightmare.
“All customers have the right to use our services without fear of being abused and offensive behaviour is completely unacceptable,” said TfL’s head of bus operations Ken Davidson, stating the obvious.
“We would like to reassure Mr James that this matter is being taken very seriously.”
This incident comes just days after a ‘kiss-in’ was held in a Brighton Sainsbury’s store after a gay couple were told by a security guard that a customer found their sharing a kiss ‘disgusting’ before subsequently threatening them with ejection.
Social media spread the story of the treatment of English literature student Annabelle Paige and her partner, people then converged and a ‘big consensual kiss-in’ was conducted to demonstrate against the homophobic actions of the Sainsbury’s store. The company subsequently called Miss Paige to apologise and issued a statement saying they were very sorry she and her partner “were treated in this way”.
Photo: via Thinkstock.
