Public Eye | Let's keep vulgar comments on gay Hong Kong lawmaker in perspective

Public Eye will neither condone nor condemn the vulgar taunting of gay legislator Raymond Chan Chi-chuen by two middle-aged women on an MTR train. Only bigots would condone such tasteless mocking of someone for being gay. But appalling as their behaviour was, the two women have a right to free speech. Unless Hong Kong outlaws non-violent hate talk - and Public Eye is averse to criminalising it - the pair have as much right to mock the supposedly small size of Chan's penis as others have to use racial slurs against minorities and call mainlanders locusts. We wonder if the two women would have bothered to taunt Chan had he not made taunting a trademark of his behaviour in the Legislative Council. Mocking Leung Chun-ying as "689" for the number of votes he got in the chief executive election is Chan's mantra, as is hurling missiles and verbal abuse at officials. Could the two have been paying back in kind, that their jibes were aimed at Chan the politician rather than Chan the gay man? Chan wants tougher laws against discrimination. Good, but we would like to remind him that landlords refusing to rent to minorities is as vulgar as someone mocking him for being gay. If he is to fight against bigotry, we urge him not to make it a self-interested battle.

Public Eye watched dumbstruck the YouTube video of the two women deriding Raymond Chan as a "d**k-less" man and a gay with a penis measuring just three inches. Well-dressed, middle-aged tai-tais aren't supposed to talk like that, especially on an MTR train. What have our politics done to us? If bisexual pop idol Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing were alive today and the pair saw him on an MTR train, they would have pleaded for selfies with him rather than mock his sexuality. The foul-mouthed abuse of Chan has taken us all to a new low. We don't even want to guess what's next.