A gay father was arrested and charged with felony criminal damage to property after he allegedly punched a right-wing social media celebrity who approached him and his husband as they were walking with their baby.
video A photo posted on Instagram by conservative commentator Riley Niemi shows her approaching West Hollywood Business Licensing Board member Anthony Vulin and his husband David on Santa Monica Boulevard.
In the video, Niemi appears to be interviewing a man on the street about same-sex parenting, and his questions echo common conservative talking points that portray gay men as child molesters and equate surrogacy with human trafficking.
“Have you heard the statistics that show gay men are much more likely to commit child sexual abuse?” Niemi asks. The couple appeared shocked and insisted this was not the case and called the claims “crazy”.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that they both have children, even though they’re both women?” Niemi continues.
“No,” Anthony Vulin replies.
Niemi asks if the couple used a surrogate mother. When they don’t comply, he says, “You paid a woman $50,000 to get pregnant?”
As the couple tried to leave, David Vulin yelled at Niemi, “Who the hell are you? I’m going to kick your ass,” and pushed him away.
The edited footage then cuts to the fight, where David Vulin punches Niemi in the head. As the confrontation unfolds, a police officer appears behind them. The video also shows a passerby who had previously helped break up the altercation telling Niemi and his crew that they “deserved to be killed” before walking away.
Niemi claimed in the video’s caption that the man who hit her could face felony charges and that his $2,500 camera was broken during the encounter. It also linked to a fundraising page asking for donations for new equipment and security.
In a follow-up video, Niemi said He tried to defuse the situation, claiming that the couple “doesn’t seem to care about the safety of their baby.”
“If we were morally delinquent men, we might have fought back and hurt that baby,” he says. “But we don’t do that.”
The couple tells a different story.
Anthony Vulin said: weho times As she was walking with her husband, she was approached by four men claiming to be from CNN, three with cameras, and asked to participate in an interview about gay parenting.
Boleyn said the questioning quickly became confrontational and the situation escalated.
“They immediately started asking if I was aware of any research showing that gay men who are parents are more likely to molest children,” he said. “People started pushing each other and they kept pushing me while I was holding the baby.”
Anthony Vulin also claimed that she and her husband were victims of a hate crime and that Niemi had used anti-gay slurs. That’s when David Vulin punched Niemi, and the couple left the scene and went to the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Office to report the incident.
Anthony Vulin said her husband was arrested by officers after he admitted to hitting someone during the confrontation. David Vulin was held for about 12 hours before being released. She said her husband was charged with allegedly damaging camera equipment during the argument.
“They said he broke the camera, but he didn’t break it,” he said. “Now we have to fight it.”
David Vulin was charged with a felony count of “vandalism involving loss of $400 or more.”
Many of the commenters on the Instagram video appeared to be on the side of the Vulins.
One commenter said, “Why not ask a heterosexual couple a question that suggests sexually abusing a newborn baby? Then the man will immediately act proactively to protect his family.” “That’s what happened in this video.”
“This isn’t a real conversation, it’s an engineered provocation,” another wrote. “Going up to families with babies and asking them stigmatizing questions is not discussion, it’s content harassment.”
Anthony Vulin has launched a GoFundMe campaign seeking $100,000 to cover her husband’s legal costs. The campaign raised more than $59,000.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
