Four straight firefighters in San Diego sued the city for sexual harassment at a gay pride parade… and won.

In 2007, the four men were ordered to ride in a gay pride parade. During the parade, they claim to have been sexually harassed and traumatized by the events. They decided to sue the city since they were forced to participate, and the jury favored them, awarding them a total sum of $34,300.

But the gay community is protesting, say the firemen are being awarded for homophobia. Many are quick to point out that if the firemen were sexually harassed by women, they wouldn’t be suing, and they’d probably enjoy it.

My 2 cents on it…

Sexual harassment is a very real and very upsetting crime. Unfortunately men are not taken seriously when they report it. While I do agree that the men probably wouldn’t have complained if they were harassed by women, the fact remains that all humans have the right to be protected from any type of harassment.

I do suspect that there is a little bit of homophobia at play here. But nonetheless, these men should have never been forced to participate. Gay pride events are very sexually charged and some kinky things go on during them. I don’t feel that anybody (gay or straight) should be required to attend one as part of their job.

I agree with the verdict. We have to keep in mind that homophobia is secondary in this case. It doesn’t really matter if the firefighters were homophobic or not. Either way, they were sexually harassed, and sexual harassment is against the law.

Taken out of context…

If you remove all the labels from this case, it’s really pretty simple. 4 adults were required as part of their job to attend an event in which they were sexually harassed. Remove the fact that they were men and remove any conflict of gay vs. straight. What you have is a group of adults that were harassed on the job. If you look at it that way, it makes perfect sense that the 4 adults won the case.

I wonder if they really were sexually harassed at the parade at all. I’m skeptical of the claims the firefighters made.

I agree with the outcome of the lawsuit. Im glad it worked for once.