An Australian Uber driver has been fired after a lesbian couple recorded his homophobic rant and threats to drag them out of his car.
Lucy Thomas, who runs an anti-bullying organization, told Buzzfeed that when the driver started making homophobic slurs after he became upset at the results of a soccer game. When his rant started to include other minority groups, Thomas spoke up. That’s when things went from bad to worse.
“One of our core messages is about challenging that daily language that’s so problematic,” she said. “So when I’m in one of those situations, there’s no way I could not stand up and say something. It’s like a cloud came over him. He’d been aggressive but cheery, but then he was quite attacking toward [Thomas’ partner]. He was calling her a faggot repeatedly, and was quite aggressive in his tone.”
When the driver realized the two women were a couple, he really flipped out. The driver pulled up outside of Thomas’ home but wouldn’t unlock the doors to let the women out. Thomas started recording the man’s rantings and told him she was recording.
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“I can do anything I want if I’m prepared to suffer the consequences,” the driver said. “What are you going to do, give me a one [star] rating? And when I write my report about two people who don’t like being called faggots, then what are they gonna say?”
What Thomas did was contact Uber who immediately fired the driver.
“Uber does not tolerate any form of discrimination, and we have been in contact with this rider to offer our support. As soon as we were made aware of this incident, we removed the driver from the platform,” a company spokesman told Buzzfeed.
Listen to the driver’s homophobic rant below.
After being threatened by our @uber driver, my girlfriend and I stood up to him and recorded it. LISTEN: https://t.co/5IIdpBLSHJ #homophobia
— Lucy Thomas 🌈 (@lucylockit_) June 5, 2016
