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.

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I assumed it happened because of the “heated verbal argument” he said his partner started. Words get exchange, tempers rise and fists come out. Again, I said I may be wrong. Maybe they were all homophobes that wanted to get a few licks in on some gay guys. Or maybe they were all assholes and turned a request into an argument into a fist fight. I don’t know. I just think his retelling of the story seems suggest there was more to it.

    • SphereofWreckening@ttrpg.network
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      3 months ago

      Multiple employees beat up a gay man after he had some PDA with his partner. No matter how you look at it the optics are horrible. Short of Mr. Dingus having a weapon or shouting slurs or something like that: there’s no justification for the employees to beat and attack him.

      I feel like you’re jumping through several hoops to put the blame back on the person who was beaten by multiple people.

      • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I’ve said multiple times that the violence was not okay and there was no excuse for it. No matter how much pda happened. I have also said multiple times that they are absolutely not to blame for the violence assuming neither threw the first punch. I only suggested that he might have downplayed a single detail in his retelling about what caused the employee to talk to them in the first place.

        • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 months ago

          've said multiple times that the violence was not okay and there was no excuse for it. No matter how much pda happened. I have also said multiple times that they are absolutely not to blame for the violence assuming neither threw the first punch.

          Good.

          I only suggested that he might have downplayed a single detail…

          You just can’t stop adding to absolute ‘never’ and ‘not’ with additional bullshit.

          Let’s go back to your first post, which started:

          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…

          You said the victims weren’t ‘as innocent’. You’re victim blaming. You can’t cover that up by starting with ‘not okay’, ‘no excuse’, and ‘not to blame’. You consistently follow on with words that EXPLICITLY MEAN “BUT they are not innocent and have some blame”.

          You talk like a politician. I can imagine you being on TV saying: “I respect childless women, however, they should vote like their father says”.

          Stop equivocating. If the violence was wrong, it was wrong. That’s it.

        • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I’ve said multiple times that the violence was not okay and there was no excuse for it.

          yet you’re bending over backwards to make excuses for it

          • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I really havent. Suggesting that the restaurant may have been justified I asking them to stop what they were doing is not excusing the violence even a little and it’s ridiculous for you to conflate the two things

            • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              I really havent. Suggesting that the restaurant may have been justified I asking them to stop what they were doing is not excusing the violence

              when you invent excuses for bigoted violence that’s what you’re doing, especially if you have to completely invent the accusation that the victims were liars and, therefore, deserved it.

              THAT is what you keep doing, and your denials just make it more obvious how much trouble with the truth when you deny the things you’ve already said here for everyone to see.

        • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          You’re the kind of person that listens to a broken woman describe being the victim of domestic violence and ask “but what did you do to set him off?”

          The only thing evident about you and your line of thinking is resentment.

      • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Trying to understand codemonkey, I believe they agrees there’s no justification. What they mean is that once a verbal fight started, tempers could have flared, and violence was inevitable, but not acceptable.

        That said, I agree the optics are very bad, and more importantly, society should start from the default position of first assessing if a hate crime happened.

        First thing should be “were these folks targeted based on their orientation?”

        After that is thoroughly vetted, only then can it be considered “did a bunch of folks get heated in a shake shack after the customers were firmly but non discriminatorily told to knock it off?”

        • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          First thing should be “were these folks targeted based on their orientation?”

          Problem is, you can never make that determination, bigots will hide their bigotry (at least in a place where bigotry is not socially acceptable, which I think DC qualifies… Oklahoma for example would be different) so unless you have some other indication, or prior knowledge of the person involved, the outward appearance of (asking couple to tone it down because omg gay people) and (asking couple to tone it down because heavy PDA makes some people uncomfortable regardless of the sexes involved) is the same.

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      YOU are the only one suggesting there’s more to it, and you’re doing it so you can side with the bigots/attackers while indirectly calling the victims liars.

        • sneaky@r.nf
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          3 months ago

          Welcome to Lemmy. I get where you’re coming from. I run a business and I have had to ask straight and gay couples to tone down their PDA. Sometimes they respond poorly and I have had them downplay what they were doing as if I wasn’t just watching it… Unfortunately letting that kind of thing slide negatively impacts how other customer view my business. I can’t have people groping each other when a family walks in.

          To the point of the people not comprehending the full scope of what you’re saying, obviously this situation got violent and that’s uncalled for. Straight or gay violence isn’t the answer.

        • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 months ago

          I’m not.

          There’s no point lying, your posts are visible. You said:

          There is never a reason for either party to escalate a verbal disagreement to a physical one, but…

          You were talking in bad faith from the very first sentence. An absolute ‘never’ to modifying it into a conditional, based on you imagining that two gay people justified a Big Mad Moment because they kissed too hard.

          There is never a reason to beat up a couple as they wait for their fast food, no matter how hard they kiss. There is no but. That was a complete sentence. Them being gay doesn’t change that in the slightest.

           

          Lol. Dude, I’m a full on socialist pro-choice pro-LGBT rights progressive.

          Usually better to show that than say it.

          • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Read my other reply to you regarding the misinterpretation of the word “but”. As for justifying the “big mad moment”, I said that calmly asking them to stop the PDA may have been justified. The employee did not get angry at them when asking them to stop by the own retelling of the victim here. I did not say that the anger and violence that followed were justified. I literally said the opposite. And you can think whatever of my progressivism. Living in a reality where sometimes people downplay their actions to come off better in a store is apparently antithetical to progressivism to you, but not to me. The guy still has rights, dignity and the freedom to express himself and love whomever he wants even if he was too embarrassed to admit he was sucking face a bit too intensely for a business to be happy with.