**Note--it has come to light that perhaps the actual incident depicted in the link below may not have occurred as described. However, rather than removing the entry, I opted to leave it, sentencing all those "this guys" (and gals) who actually do this sort of thing (and similar) to The Dungeon.
This guy goes into The Dungeon today. My first reaction is to put him in The Torture Chamber but I'll extend myself to believe a tiny bit of possibility that this guy fundamentally understands what he did was at least a little wrong.
In case you don't feel like reading anything but my own gloriously wondrous writing, I'll summarize. A mom took her 2-year old to Wal-Mart. He was wearing a pink headband and a pathetic excuse of a human not only touched her child without permission but also referred to him as a faggot and predicted his future assault. No, really. That's what happened. Go read it. I'll wait.
Now, first things first, you never, ever touch a child you do not know without their permission or in the case of very young children, the permission of their parents. Children are not another species, they are young humans and therefore, entitled to the same respect of personal space and safety as anyone else. I think I am not naive for thinking that this jerk would not have reached out and smacked another adult in the head while they shopped. I could be wrong--he could be an utter psychopath. However, I feel it more likely that he is simply an entitled, confused individual with no concept of boundaries due to his resting comfortably in the cozy nest of white male privilege his entire life. So, in his own simian way, when confronted with something that seemed like a round peg in his square-hole world, he felt it was his duty to "fix" it.
That said, what kind of grown adult feels it necessary to hurl slurs at a toddler? How inferior and frustrated do you have to feel to lash out in anger toward a baby for not seeing things your way? The kid wasn't spraying him with glitter. The little boy wasn't trying to signal him using the Handkerchief Code. I feel safe in saying that not even Reverend Benedict Groeschel could claim the kid was trying to seduce this guy into that fabled "homosexual lifestyle" that seems to terrify so many people. No, the Dora the Explorer-loving kid was simply wearing a headband in his favorite color. For this, a 2-year old was assaulted, insulted and threatened by a grown man.
Kudos to the mother for not overreacting. Had this been my child, I'd be dictating this to the reporter who came to interview me in prison.
I have personally experienced similar idiocy, albeit on a somewhat less-physical level. However, the results could have been far more devastating. When my daughter was about 6-months old, she had a compromised immune system. It wasn't bad enough to confine her to the hospital but precarious enough that she couldn't come into physical contact with people without proper hand-cleaning procedures being carried out first.
While we were shopping one day, a couple of older ladies stopped to admire the baby. I gently explained the immunity situation, apologizing that they couldn't reach in and grab a tiny hand or tickle her belly. They were very understanding and caring, proclaiming her to be "precious" and "a miracle" before going off to continue their shopping.
Moments later, they were still nearby when I bent down to select an item from the bottom shelf, exposing the pentagram necklace I always wore. Standing, I caught the eye of one of the ladies and smiled, only to met with a look I can only describe as fearfully hostile. (It's the same look I am sure I have when confronting large spiders.)
Having experienced the same series of events more than once previously, I simply sighed and continued my shopping. It wasn't until several minutes later that I noticed that my tiny, immune-compromised child was not only handling but attempting to chew on what turned out to be a Chick Tract.
These people gave a (literally) filthy, hate-filled booklet covered in germs to an fragile baby based on their glimpse of a piece of jewelry and felt strongly enough about something they obviously knew absolutely nothing about to risk the very life of a less than 6-pound infant.
So, yes, these people are out there. And they belong in here.
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