Catholic High School Condemns Beating of Gay Couple In Philadelphia
A Catholic high school near Philadelphia has fired its assistant coach and condemned his behavior after he was allegedly involved in the beating of a gay couple that resulted in injury last week.
Surveillance video from last Thursday night shows a large group of young people leaving a pizza restaurant in Philadelphia. According to a police report filed by a gay couple in their mid-twenties, the group attacked the men for their sexuality, reportedly hurtling gay slurs at them while pummeling them on the ground.
One of the young gay men reportedly received a broken eye socket and fractured jaw, while the other had a black eye and bruises.
According to Archbishop Charles Chaput, some of the people involved in the altercation were former students at Archbishop Wood, a Catholic high school located in the Philadelphia suburb of Warminster.
"Violence against anyone, simply because of who they are, is inexcusable and alien to what it means to be a Christian," Chaput said Thursday of the incident.
"A key part of a Catholic education is forming students to respect the dignity of every human person whether we agree with them or not," Chaput continued. "What students do with that formation when they enter the adult world determines their own maturity and dignity, or their lack of it."
Although witnesses and the victims of the beating say the two gay men were attacked by the group of intoxicated twenty-somethings, a lawyer representing the defendants claim one of the two gay men threw the first punch in the altercation.
Defense attorneys also told the local NBC affiliate that more footage from the incident will paint a clearer image of what took place on the night of Sept. 11 on Chancellor and 16th Streets in Philadelphia.
