A recent candidate for St. John’s city council and curler, Greg Smith is raising the spectre of homophobia and hatred after a recent altercation in the downtown.
Smith told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly says he was approached by a stranger who made unprovoked homophobic slurs at him.
Smith says it’s was the sixth time he’d been targeted with slurs and insults and he describes it as a breaking point for him.
Smith says when he challenged the person, the man punched him in the face, breaking his jaw.
?? 5/
I then went home.
The physical pain I’m in is excruciating – along with the discomfort of the swelling.I went to the ER today to find out I have a broken jaw. I can’t eat solid food, the swelling could last up to 2 weeks over Christmas, and I’m on prescribed painkillers pic.twitter.com/thQ2918EnM
— ???????? ?????????? (@GregSmithNL) December 19, 2021
He pushed the man who then punched him in the face, but Smith says the man did lose his pizza, which he wryly describes as “a small win.”
Smith doesn’t want sympathy or well-wishes but he does want parents to talk to their kids about hatred.
He says the situations he’s faced over the last year have involved men his age or younger “this is stuff from people that should be from the generation of a more accepting and loving world.”
