Kissing somebody of the same sex in the back seat of a cab can apparently get you angrily ejected in Chicago. That is, if you're using Sun Taxi Association. In fact, you might even be asked to get out of the cab on a busy expressway at 11:30 at night.
That's what happened to Steven White and his boyfriend Matt McCrea on a cab ride from O'Hare International Airport. Apparently, according to White:
[McCrea] leaned over to look at something on the phone and then he leaned in to kiss me.
What kind of a kiss? The kind of closed-mouth kiss that lasts a few seconds. The kind of kiss that heterosexual couples give each other regularly, without having to worry about, you know, being kicked out of a cab on a highway. That kiss was all it took for the driver to fly off the handle.
Watch the TV news report by CBS Chicago:
If you can't watch, follow me over the fold for more.
After White and McCrea kissed, the driver lost it. He pulled over on the Kennedy Expressway--and I don't think you need to be a Chicagoan to understand how dangerous this is--and demanded the couple get out of the cab. At 11:30 PM. On the Kennedy. According to McCrea:
[The cab driver] indicated that it was a public mode of transportation and we shouldn’t kiss in his cab. He pulled the cab over and stopped and wanted us to get out — on the Kennedy. He could have asked us to please don’t do that and handle the situation a lot differently than it was handled.
Indeed, he could have.
When the couple (understandably) refused to get out on a busy expressway in the middle of the night, the cab driver continued driving, pulled over in a grocery store parking lot, and the Park Ridge Police Department was called. The cab driver told the police that the couple was "making sex" in the back of the cab. Seriously.
According to CBS Chicago:
The Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, the city’s overseer of cabs, said drivers have rights but cannot discriminate.
The department tells CBS 2 they’ll investigate any claim against the driver. The couple plans to file a complaint.
As well they should.
Sun Taxi Association, in the meantime, has refused to comment.
White has this to say about the incident:
Rarely in my life have I ever wondered if I would have been treated differently if I were heterosexual. That thought hardly ever crosses my mind, but last night I wondered.
Because I'm sure the cab driver tries to dump
all couples who kiss in the back seat out on the Kennedy, right?