A South Dakota man was left with a black eye after allegedly being assaulted when he spoke out against a woman who was using anti-gay epithets on the street.
As Keloland reported, Drew Bartscher was outside of a popular bar in Sioux Falls when he overheard a woman use an anti-gay term while having a conversation with her boyfriend.
"She said these 'f**ing f-words,' referring to homosexuals," Bartscher, who is straight, told local ABC affiliate KSFY. "I stopped and I just commented to her, 'You really shouldn't call anybody the f-word, that's rude.' Then I continued to walk in the direction towards our car."
He continued, "Then I hear this guy yell at me, 'What the F did you say to my girlfriend?!?!' I turned just a little bit and then the next thing I know, my friends are picking me up off the sidewalk [because] I had gotten punched pretty good."
The vice president of a local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization said he was "pretty shocked" by the news, according to KDLT.
"Just to punch someone who was trying to say you shouldn't use that derogatory term is pretty shocking," Thomas Christiansen of Sioux Falls' Center for Equality is quoted as saying. "Letting people know that a slur here and there or even where it goes further, when that slur turns into violence, shouldn't be tolerated."
In 2013, a Nebraska man was left bruised and bloody after allegedly being beaten by three men who had initially been harassing his two gay friends, one of whom was dressed in drag.
Ryan Langenegger, who identifies as straight, said the he stepped forward after one of the suspects told his pal he was "disgusting," followed by a series of other anti-gay epithets, and took a blow to the face shortly thereafter.
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