The couple blames conservative politicians and right-wing media for the incident, citing a recent uptick in charged rhetoric surrounding LGBTQ issues.
Robbie Pierce, his husband and their two young children were enjoying a scenic train ride on the Pacific coast, a peaceful prelude to their spring break getaway. But at the end of their journey from their home in Los Angeles to Oakland, California, the couple said a man sitting across the aisle turned their family vacation into a nightmare.
“He started yelling across me and shouting, ‘Remember what I told you!’” Pierce recalled, saying the man’s remarks were directed at his 6-year-old son. “The next thing he said was, ‘Marriage is between a man and a woman. They stole you, and they’re pedophiles.’”
The shouting started as the Amtrak train was stopped at Diridon Station in San Jose, Pierce said. Immediately, he and his husband, Neal Broverman, stood up and got in between the unidentified man and their children, who started sobbing.
Before speaking with NBC News about the Tuesday night incident, the pair documented the event in a now-viral Twitter thread. Along with detailing the encounter, the couple placed blame for the incident on the recent uptick in charged rhetoric concerning LGBTQ issues.
In recent weeks, conservative politicians and pundits have been characterizing opponents of Florida’s newly enacted Parental Rights in Education bill — dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics — as trying to “groom” or “indoctrinate” children, and in some cases accusing them of being “pro-pedophile.”
At the Florida bill-signing ceremony in late March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely believed to be considering a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, slammed the law’s critics, saying they “support sexualizing kids in kindergarten” and “camouflage their true intentions.” He added that the law would ensure “that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination.”
The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers and had, at least in the past decade, appeared to be relegated to the margins of the far-right movement.