Lesbian couple accused of ‘raping children’ in homophobic rant by Starbucks ‘Karen’
The unidentified woman launched a tirade of abuse towards a lesbian couple (Screenshot by PinkNews)
A lesbian couple were accused of “raping children” and being “evil” in an unprovoked homophobic rant by a complete stranger.
The incident occurred on 6 March at a Starbucks on the junction of Coral Way and 27th Avenue in Miami, Florida whilst couple Cassie Urry and Lorrin Skrbec were grabbing coffee. They filmed it, and shared what happened online.
The pair had gone into the coffee shop prior to boarding a cruise ship when they noticed the unidentified woman making racist and offensive comments to other customers.
Urry explained the woman had been saying people of colour were a “product of the devil” and the Asian community “brought COVID over here to kill all of our people”, before turning her attention to the lesbian couple.
Skrbec stepped in to ask her not to speak to people in that way and the woman turned her abusive tirade on the pair.
The bigot launched a series of vile homophobic insults at the two, describing lesbianism as “not ok” and that they should be “ashamed” of themselves.
“Do you think lesbianism is ok? No it isn’t because you touch children, you rape children because you’re all evil”, the woman said whilst being recorded, much to the shock of fellow Starbucks customers.
Speaking with NBC 6, south Florida’s dedicated new channel, the Ohio couple said the incident had left them in “shock”.
” I’ve never had anyone speak to me that way,” Skrbec told the broadcaster, “So it was extremely surprising.”
“We just tried to stay calm because there was no point in escalating with her,” Urry added,
“I’ve come face to face with pretty indirectly silly things — like people taking pictures or videos or pointing us out or things like that — that really you just brush off your shoulder, but this is what I would say was the most direct and in our face that it’s ever been, so both of us were in shock.”
Urry shared her video footage on TikTok and since it was posted it has gained more than six million views, nearly 800,000 likes and 25,000 comments.
In a statement provided by the Miami Police Department to NBC 6, the force said an officer arrived at the scene where the aggressor and the lesbian couple had already separated “without further incident”.
“The officer was able to make contact with the female and instructed her to leave the premises and safely crossed her across the street without any other issue,” the spokesperson said.
A Starbucks spokesperson also told the news channel that the company does not tolerate “behaviour like this” and “this customer is no longer welcome in any of their stores”.
Urry added that the couple chose to share the footage online in order to highlight that anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination does still happen in everyday life.
She said: “A lot of people are under the impression that we have come so far in our progress for the LGBTQ community.
“And while that is true, I think that people don’t always believe other people when they say that we do still face discrimination and there still are people out there spreading these messages towards us.”
The so-called ‘sunshine state’ of Florida has come under fire in recent months for increasingly hostile legislation towards LGBTQ+ people, that has been supported by governor Ron DeSantis. The state’s Don’t Say Gay bill, which bans schools from discussing LGBTQ+ identities, has been slammed by LGBTQ+ activists as silencing queer people.
