|
Maintaining the trend of "we don't take s*** from anyone anymore," Lambda Legal and Ari Gold reached an agreement with Short Line Bus Company regarding the discriminatory incident that Gold and his boyfriend experienced early last month. Details after the jump.
On July 10, Ari Gold was harassed by a bus driver who was "uncomfortable" with Gold holding his boyfriend's hand and was asked to move to the back of the bus. After Ari "Rosa" Gold refused, cops were called, to which they told the bus driver that nothing was illegal about the singer's actions. After the incident, Ari and Lambda Legal felt something must be done to prevent something like this happening again.
In a press release, Lambda Legal writes, "Short Line Bus Company has confirmed it has appropriately disciplined the driver and pledged to conduct antidiscrimination training for all the company's drivers," following the demand letter by Lambda Legal.
Ari Gold also spoke out of Short Line's swift reaction:
"I am so grateful to Lambda Legal for helping me use my platform as a singer/songwriter and activist to bring attention to an issue that happens way too often to people whose voices don't get heard enough. I am even more pleased that something that was initially very negative to experience has turned into something positive because of the actions taken by Short Line Bus Company to ensure that something like this will not happen again. I hope more corporations will follow suit. Maybe in the future all corporations will be held responsible for implementing their own sensitivity/harassment training and not wait for another person's civil rights to be violated."
Sticking up for yourself and what's right might be a pain in the behind, but it pays dividends. Tolerance, acceptance and equality can be taught and can be contagious. We love happy endings...and when stories end well.
(Source: UnicornBooty)
 |
