A gay couple has filed a lawsuit
against a cab driver and a Chicago-area taxi company, alleging the
driver forced them out of his cab over a kiss.
Steven White of West Hollywood,
California and his boyfriend Matt McCrea of Chicago were on their way
to McCrea's home from O'Hare International Airport on a rainy June
night when the kiss, described as a peck by McCrea, provoked the
driver for Sun Taxi, identified as Jama Anshur in the complaint, to
turn on and off the interior lights and tell the couple, “This is
public transportation.”
The men claim that Anshur attempted to
force them out of his cab and onto the shoulder of the Kennedy
Expressway. They refused, deciding instead to dial Chicago's 311
Call Center to file a complaint. When Anshur reentered the freeway,
their call was routed to police.
Anshur attempted to eject the men from
his cab at a nearby grocery store parking lot, but the men refused to
leave the cab until police arrived.
Anshur told the officer responding to
the call that McCrea and White had been “making sex” in his cab.
Chicago's cab-regulatory agency fined
Anshur $1,540 and Sun Taxi fired him, according
to reports quoting the complaint.
“We're doing this because what
happened to us isn't right,” McCrea
told Reuters, “and we want to make sure other people, if they
find themselves in this situation, they know it's not OK.”
The men are seeking unspecified
damages.