Scottish Man Faces Criminal Charges for Calling His Ex's Boyfriend a 'Leprechaun'

Source - A MAN in Scotland has been taken to court after using the term “leprechaun” to describe his ex-partner’s new Irish boyfriend in a threatening email. 

Terry Myers, 41, from Aberdeen was fined after using the derogatory term in reference to his former girlfriend’s partner, who was born in Dublin, the Evening Express reports. 

The message also saw Mr. Myers make various threats to assault the Irishman. 

The woman contacted police after receiving the email and taking offence at the use of the term “leprechaun” and threats of physical violence. 

According to the report, Mr. Myers accepted the charge of sending a message that was “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character in that it used offensive and derogatory language to refer to her new partner” and of also threatening his ex’s new partner with assault. 

The offence carried with it a racial and domestic aggravation. 

Welp, I guess this was inevitable. I'd always assumed the Irish would be the last holdouts. The last ethnic group to allow itself to be smeared with "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" and "offensive and derogatory language." And maybe we are. I haven't checked in with every group around the world. Maybe the Laplanders or the Tibetans or someone are still letting things slide, I honestly don't know. I just sort of held out hope the Irish would never allow it to be a criminal offense to call them something … well, offensive. 

I just hope it never crosses the Atlantic. The Scots can do what they want. But if I ever have to stop refer to my Irish friends by derogatory, ethnically insensitive terms, I'm going to lose the ability to communicate with them. It would be like learning a whole new language there is no Rosetta Stone for. Or like when you were in your early 20s and you'd spend a weekend with your friends and have to come back home to mom's house having to relearn how to get through sentence without using forms of the word "fuck." I'm just have no faith I can put that verbal governor on by brain's motor. 

I mean, what are you supposed to call a man of Irish ancestry who is rather belligerent and somewhat short of stature if you can't call him "leprechaun"? "My good man"? "My diminutive friend"? "Sir"? "Human person"? I can't enhance sentences like this. And what's next? Will calling someone a "Mick" be banned speech? Will I no longer be able to refer to their beer consumption or below average penises? I'm not convinced that would be a social life worth living. 

I have no quarrel with anyone taking away a product logo or changing the mascot of a school team because their outdated and offensive. None whatsoever. But they'll have to take the Lucky Charms leprechaun and the Celtics and Fighting Irish mascots from between my cold, dead fingers. They're not offensive. They're lore. They're heritage. It might suck to be an Irishman in Scotland getting threatened in an email by your girlfriend's ex and having him remind you you're short and come from a long line of pale, thick-accented, alcoholic warrior poets. But the issue there are the threats, not the bad word he called you. The right response is to tell the guy to piss off, not call the cops. If calling someone "leprechaun" is a hate crime now, we're going to need much bigger jails and a lot more of them.