Comic Must Pay $16K for Lesbian Insults: Court

A Canadian human rights tribunal has ordered a stand-up comedian to pay a woman $15,700 after he insulted her and her partner at a show. Lorna Pardy says amateur comic Guy Earle discriminated against her based on gender and sexual preference, the Vancouver Sun reports. The owner of the Vancouver restaurant that hosted the 2007 event must pay Pardy an additional $7,900, the tribunal ruled. Earle plans to appeal the decision.

Earle’s “attack showed every sign of being calculated to inflict as much damage as possible, in as short a time as possible, on her greatest vulnerabilities,” wrote a tribunal member. Pardy says Earle labeled the couple “the dyke table” and described sex acts between the women; after she booed, he came over to her table and insulted her. Earle says the couple was heckling him and that he “didn’t say the things they said I said." (More stand up comedy stories.)