227: Okay, there's no way to avoid this sounding insincere, but I promise that it's a legitimate question:
Why is breaking someone's sunglasses clear cut assault and throwing a drink at someone isn't? That makes absolutely no sense to me.
I didn't interpret your question as insincere.
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. The comedian leaves the stage, walks right to the desk of these seated women, continues to scream at and insult them in the worst way possible. Nothing at this point was or was even meant to be humorous. Not sure what stand-up routines are like in Canada, but they surely don't comprise continuously screaming "fucking cunts," "stupid cunts," "stupid dykes", "fucking dyke cunts", "fucking stupid dyke" or "stupid fucking bitch" at your audience at their desks, so the free speech claim here was bogus to begin with. The Human Rights tribunal ruled discrimination, rightly so. The Human Rights tribunal said the women were physically intimidated and cornered. Rightly so. Plus, imagine the situation that someone considerably larger and way more aggressive than you is picking your glasses right from your nose and breaks them. That's strictly a threatening display of male dominance. Who do you think was more terrified in that situation? Who do you think felt a threat of bodily harm and who definitely didn't? You're living in a country in which
since 2001, more women in the US were killed by their male partners than US citizens have died in 9/11, the Irak and the Afghanistan war combined. I really don't see how the response of the two women - to throw liquid at his clothing - constitutes in any way a similar aggression, a threat of bodily harm, or therewith assault. These are completely different weight classes.
Damn straight.
Germany lost some four ranks last year... because of... yup, right wing terror against the press. Need to lock these people up quick.