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.
My money is also on bigotry, but the way Dingus said “began to kiss” makes me wonder how intense it was. If he’d said “gave my partner a kiss” that’s one thing, but “began to kiss” sounds like it might have been more like “making out” which I don’t want to see anyone doing in a restaurant.
I’m just speculating and the real answer is probably homophobia, but there’s a slim possibility it wasn’t.
I’m sure the difference is that if it were a hetero couple people might have commented “Get a room!” or something and left it at that, and it wouldn’t have escalated.