South Yorkshire firefighters respond to homophobic comments in brilliant new video – WATCH
"Fires don't discriminate. Neither do we."
By Will Stroude
South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service have used homophobic comments they received after publicly supporting Pride to create a brilliant new video to marking LGBT History Month in the UK.
The emergency service, which serves Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield, received a flood of homophobic comments after changing their Facebook profile picture to a rainbow flag last summer.
Now, they’ve released a video which sees firefighters and staff members reeading out some of the hysterical remarks as they go about their work, while reminding people that LGBTQ people also make up a valued part of their force.
Last year we got a load of abuse when we added the rainbow flag to our profile picture.
We don’t think homophobic abuse is acceptable and we stand with all those LGBT+ people we serve and employ 🏳️🌈
Thanks for the comments… 👍#LGBTHM2020 pic.twitter.com/kwzAvKWUjq
— South Yorkshire Fire (@SYFR) February 5, 2020
Comments read out include “Let’s see pictures of firefighters doing their job and leave political correctness out of it!” and “More box ticking!”
Chief fire officer Alex Johnson told BBC News: “We fully expect the video will have a mixed reaction but some of the comments we received last year were awful and totally unacceptable.
“We’ve produced it for two reasons – firstly we wanted to support the month and let our staff, and communities, know that we are proud to employ and serve them, regardless of those comments.
“And secondly we wanted to demonstrate that we are a genuinely inclusive organisation that values the contribution of all our staff, whatever their LGBT+ status.”