Almost $50,000 raised for man attacked by evangelist thugs

Almost $50,000 raised for man attacked by evangelist thugs August 26, 2020

••• Update August 27: One of the victim’s alleged assailants has been identified as Dorre Love, below left, a preacher who has form for extreme aggression and abuse.

While street preaching against homosexuality, Love is repeatedly told to ‘fuck off’ by an angry man. Image via YouTube.

VANCOUVER sportscaster Justin Morissette is recovering in hospital from multiple fractures after he was attacked last Saturday by two violent street preachers who were spewing anti-gay hate messages.

According CTV News Vancouver police have recommended charges of aggravated assault and mischief against two men who were arrested, and its hate crimes unit is also investigating to see if charges will be pursued.

Meanwhile, a fundraiser launched by Morissette’s brother Kevin has raised  more than $48,000 in just two days.

The trouble began when Morissette confronted a group of anti-gay demonstrators in the heart of Vancouver’s LGBTQ community.

Morissette, who was on his way to a first date, told CTV News:

I was not going to stand idly back and let these men just verbally attack my neighbours because you could look around in the crowd and see how hurtful and upsetting it was. They are there to antagonise. They are there to make people feel threatened.

Morissette said he tried to turn down an amplifier, but the preachers turned it back up. He then grabbed the microphone and the confrontation escalated.

Speaking of one of his assailants, Morissette said:

He put his right leg behind my left leg, and with the full Nelson still locked in, wrenched my body into his leg until my leg snapped and broke in multiple places and I fell to the ground in agony.

The fundraiser said that a group of preachers decided to set up speakers and a microphone at the corner of Burnaby and Thurlow Streets. This is the second time they’ve done so this summer. The first time, they shared their homophobic and transphobic ideologies into their microphones for over an hour.

Residents of the neighbourhood actively called the police asking for these individuals to be stopped – to no avail …

2020 has brought with it the call to action for civilians to stand up and fight against intolerance and bigotry. Justin did exactly this by confronting this group of religious extremists who believed they had a right to spread hate speech.

Justin is proud of what he did but unfortunately he was violently assaulted and seriously injured. Luckily, police and ambulance were on scene. Justin was taken to hospital having both bones in his left leg broken and his left knee dislocated …

In the coming months, Justin will be faced with  medical bills, a loss of income, legal fees, rent and living costs. It will be some time before rehab is completed and he is able to return to work. He badly needs the help of his family and friends to manage this tragic turn of events.

Morissette was left wondering  whether confronting the so-called street preachers was the right move. But the response from the LGBTQ community has swayed any doubts.

(A nurse) put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Thank you for sticking up for us,’ and that just moved me to tears, honestly.

You have to tell these aggressors that this is not acceptable behaviour. And that’s what I did. I paid an enormous price for it, but I don’t regret it at all.

Morrisette, host of Wrestle Central on SportsNet, said in this report that he didn’t regret his actions.He tweeted:

I don’t know why I did this. It felt like the right thing to do and no one else would. I’m going to have metal plates in my leg for the rest of my life.

I’m only tweeting about this because there have been too many instances of unchecked racism and during the pandemic, videos of people spewing hate while everyone just sits there and ignores it … That behaviour is not welcome in our communities.

Though he faces a lengthy recovery, Morrisette said he was glad to have:

Prevented harm to someone I will never know. The violent man who did this to me would have done it, or possibly much worse to someone else down the line had he not been arrested tonight.

Repelling preachers with Liquid Ass

A few years back I met I met a New Yorker who claimed great success in repelling street preachers with a substance called Liquid Ass. I thought he was joking until I checked out the product’s website, which claimed that:

Once unleashed, this power–packed, super–concentrated liquid begins to evaporate filling the air with a genuine, foul butt–crack smell with hints of dead animal and fresh poo.

The guy said he would sneak up to evangelists and spray their clothes, hair, Bibles and megaphones with the stuff, then watch them gag and flee.

My only violent confrontation with a street preacher occurred in the early 1980s in London, when I ordered a black-clad, middle-aged evangelist to stop abusing a group of nurses who were demanding better wages during a protest outside a hospital.

The deranged preacher was calling them “whores”, “sluts”, “Jezebels” and the like, and I wasn’t having it. When I told him to shut the fuck up and move on, he rounded on me and called me a “godless hippy poof.”

When he moved to hit me with a bloody great Bible, I wrenched it out of his grip and threw it into the street, where it was shredded by a double-decker bus.

He dropped to his knees, wailing that I’d destroyed a family heirloom, and I was loudly cheered by those on the picket line.

Was I proud of my action? Damn right I was!

Hat tip: BarrieJohn

• Please report any typos/errors to barry@freethinker.co.uk

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