A North Carolina-based gay couple claims they were victims of a brutal hate crime that left them bruised and bloodied.
As WSOCTV is reporting, Mark Little and his partner Dustin Martin were vacationing inAsheville when they say they were attacked by two women and a man, who emerged from a passing car, while walking back to their hotel on Sept. 23. Little and Martin say the two women began taunting them with homophobic slurs, including “faggot”, just before the man physically attacked them.
“It’s just so vile…just so hateful”, Little is quoted by the news channel as saying. “It was just so hateful. It’s awful”.
Added Martin: “Hit me and take something. Hit me and steal from me. But don’t hit me just because I like boys”.
A number of local news outlets including WBTV are reporting that Asheville police are stillinvestigating the assault, and that no arrests have been made as of yet. If the suspects are caught, they could be charged with simple assault because sexual orientation and gender identity are not protected classes under North Carolina’s existing hate crime laws.
As Little told WBTV, “I feel like that when the cop first came on the scene he just felt like it was just an ordinary crime, but what had happened is we were hit just because we were gay”.
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