Jane Currie and her partner, Anji Dimitriou, both small, soft-spoken women, were waiting with other parents at Gordon B. Attersley public school in Oshawa, when, fists flying, a man attacked them, his blows as harmful as his words.
"Which one of you two 'men' spoke to my kid? F------ dyke. Lesbians," he said, spitting in Dimitriou's face. As she wiped her face, eyes closed, he punched her on the cheek and wound up again, slamming her backward into her truck. As Currie ran toward him, she remembers him shouting, "F------ dyke bitches," and punched her on the cheekbone so hard the skin burst apart, blood splattering.
What Currie remembers most, from the afternoon of Nov. 3, is the stillness of the schoolchildren, and the sound of her six-year-old son screaming. "It was a face of complete and utter horror," Currie said in an interview yesterday. "His mouth was wide open, and he just stood there, screaming."
In seconds, it was over. Another man intervened, so did a woman, pushing the attacker aside. Police were called. The principal led him inside to her office, Currie said. A man was arrested and charged with two counts of assault causing bodily harm.
It wasn't the first time the man had called them those names, Currie said. There have been several other occasions where he had verbally attacked them, usually over a parking spot in the school lot.
Last night, when Currie spoke of the assault, her voice grew low with anger. Why, she asked, did another person feel he had the right to attack them because of their lifestyle?
Currie said she and Dimitriou are pushing Durham police to upgrade the charges to hate crimes.
"That is what it is," she said. "He went after us because of who we are."
Insp. Brian Osborne, of Durham Regional Police, said last night that the department will investigate the possibility that the assaults could be classified as hate crimes. The decision to pursue those charges is usually made with the Crown attorney's office, Osborne said.
In 2006, Statistics Canada reported that one-quarter of hate crimes were motivated by religion and one in 10 by sexual orientation. Hate crimes accounted for less than 1 per cent of all criminal incidents reported by police.
Currie said a rally is being planned for Friday night at 7 at, at King St. and Centre St. in downtown Oshawa. The couple has gathered support on a Facebook site called, "Lesbian moms attacked outside elementary school," which so far has almost 3,000 members.
Currie said her son, and her partner's seven-year-old daughter and six-year-old son, all students at the school, are terrified of encountering the man again.
"I'm angry," Currie said. "Why does he even care? Is his existence so pathetic that he needs to single me out for how I live my life?"
Charged is Mark Scott, 43, of Oshawa.
story by Moira Welsh, The Star.com; images from newsdurhamregion.com
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