Homophobic insult hurled at driver with rainbow flag
A HOMOPHOBIC insult hurled at a driver came as a shock to him and has led to the Liberate group CEO saying it is time for such comments to be classed alongside racist abuse as an offence.
Toby Boucher said that he was not a member of the LGBTQ+ community but was an enthusiastic supporter of it.
He used to have a Guernsey flag on his car but when this fell apart he decided to put up a different one and chose a rainbow flag because he liked the look of it and supported the movement.
‘It’s been on there for quite a while,’ he said.
He had never heard any comments before.
‘It was the first time I’ve ever heard anyone scream out across the road at someone,’ he said.
‘To be honest, it’s not something I’d expect. You hear about it but to have it happen to you is a different matter entirely. It was a shock just to hear it at all.’
Since he was driving at the time he did not get a good look at the other person but said it was a man who was probably in his 20s driving in the opposite direction.
He took to Twitter to share the experience and received several replies sarcastically referring to a recent comment made by chief minister Peter Ferbrache that Guernsey people were not discriminatory – although he did qualify this by saying that there will always be some people in every society who were.
Liberate CEO Ellie Jones was not surprised to hear about Mr Boucher’s experience and tweeted the group’s support for him.
‘We’ve loved seeing you driving around loud and proud,’ she wrote.
Mx Jones said she would like to see the law changed to include homophobic abuse alongside racism as a criminal offence.
While the group gets reports of homophobic comments being made at least once a week, she said that many incidents are not passed on. ‘It happens literally every day to people, it just doesn’t get reported,’ she said.
Such comments made in public will not be covered under the island’s new discrimination laws when they come into effect, although Mx Jones said someone making such remarks in the workplace would be subject to the law.
Despite the lack of legislation she said police had been good in dealing with complaints made to them.
‘If you report an incident like that happening to you they’ll go and talk to the people, basically giving them a ticking off. If there’s a public order offence or something they will try to address it.’
She said she had asked Home Affairs to look into the matter previously and would do so again.
