Here’s the original post, now with improved grammar and syntax., and comments.
Via the Providence Journal:
[F]our young women now face charges of assault or battery and disorderly conduct. The youngest, 17, also faces a more serious charge — felony assault with a dangerous substance.
PJ also updated the original story after interviewing the suspects and victims:
Amanda L. Zangrilli, 23, of West Warwick, said she and her girlfriend had seen the men in the same spot for a few days, and had “every intention” of bringing opposing signs of their own.
Then, Tuesday afternoon, Zangrilli said, she and her girlfriend, Kristen A. Scungio, 19, also of West Warwick, saw the men again. She says they were pointing at the women, in a way that told her they realized the two were gay. Her girlfriend threw the soda bottle out the window –– missing the man she threw it toward, just as she had intended.
“We heard him yell, ‘Ha ha, you missed,’ ” Zangrilli said.
The two drove to a friend’s house, gathered whatever they could get their hands on and returned with the friend.
Zangrilli and Scungio said the men yelled at them when they returned, calling them the Antichrist, homosexuals and sinners. The men shouted anti-gay slurs at them, the women said, and one pushed his camera into Scungio’s face; she “pushed it away on instinct.”
“And then the flagpole guy raised his pole to me, and I turned around and punched him because I wasn’t sure what he was going to do,” Scungio said. “I was wicked scared. It turned into, like, a riot.”
Another woman driving by, an acquaintance of the women, jumped into the fray.
The men dispute the women’s account and face no charges.
Do I doubt slurs were shouted? No. Anyone participating in a multi-day four-person protest at a random intersection is not the most securely hinged of individuals. Does that justify anything these three women did? No.
Also, yesterday I falsely reported in passing that RI civil law permits same sex marriage. They don’t, but do recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. (Thanks, Storm!)
Filed under: heterosexism, LGBT concerns, religion, religion: Roman Catholicism | 1 Comment »