A vegetarian Long Island man is suing the Wall Street firm where he used to work because the boss allegedly taunted him about his dietary restrictions, incessantly calling him "gay." Twenty-eight-year-old trader Ryan Pacifico says Robert Catalanello, his boss at French financial firm Calyon in the Americas, tormented him for being a "homo" who wouldn't eat steak. Pacifico tells the Daily News, "A trading floor is certainly a manly man's world. I just never expected someone to think it's gay to be a vegetarian or to constantly poke fun at me." This from a guy who's been a vegetarian since his teenage years on Long Island?
Pacifico says he was doing fine at the firm until Catalenello discovered his freakish vegetable fetish; in papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Catalanello is quoted thusly: "You don't even eat steak, dude. At what point in time did you realize you were gay?" (The sound of high-fives and guttural belches are apparently excised from the record.) The suit goes on to allege that when Catalanello ordered staff meals, he would deliberately buy only meat dishes, and when other brokers stood up for Pacifico, the beef-boosting boss blurted, "Who the fu*k cares? It's his fault for being a vegetarian homo."
According to the Post, Pacifico was fired last year for "for a minor infraction," but the lawsuit contends it was all because he refused to participate in the meat-industrial complex. His lawyer says, "It's a ridiculous male stereotype that only real men eat meat." It's also ridiculous that people still use the word "gay" as a pejorative, but nevertheless Pacifico would like everyone to know that he's married and even served steak at his wedding. So leave Ryan alone!
