Going on a cruise is often touted as one of the most relaxing ways to spend a vacation, but for one GLBT tour group a recent cruise to Ensenada turned out to be anything but relaxing. On Saturday, Nov. 1, in international waters off the coast of San Diego, two people were seriously injured in an assault aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas. The victims are describing the unprovoked attack and as an anti-gay hate crime. However, because the incident occurred in international waters and is being investigated by the FBI under federal law, the perpetrators, if charged, will only be prosecuted for assault and battery because gays aren’t a protected class under federal law.

The first victim was attacked in a nightclub on board the ship when he confronted two females who, along with their boyfriends, had been making anti-gay remarks throughout the day.

“One person, a member of our tour group at the bar, essentially asked them to stop and the two girls decided to attack him,” Don Stouder, a San Diego man who was on the cruise with his partner, told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “They pushed him off of his stool and onto the ground and one of their boyfriends immediately got involved and started kicking him when he was on the ground.”

There were no security officers in the nightclub at the time of the attack. According to witnesses, as the boyfriend was being pulled off the victim, he began to shout anti-gay epithets including, “Come on, any more of you fags want to have your asses kicked?”

Security arrived outside the club as the assailants were leaving the club with their friends.

“They were still yelling anti-gay epithets like, ‘You fags, we should line you up and shoot you,’ and ‘You fags, I will take all of you on,’ stuff like that,” Stouder said. “There was a lesbian woman out in the hallway who said something to take objection to that … and she was attacked right in front of the ship’s security guards.”

One of the female assailants pushed the victim to the ground, and her boyfriend kicked the victim in the head. The victim, whose name is not being reported, was taken to the ship’s infirmary after the attack and was diagnosed with a torn cornea. The first victim suffered cuts and bruises to his face.

According to guest books in passengers’ rooms, company policy states they will detain disruptive passengers and put them off of the ship if need be; however, the four individuals involved in the attack were allowed to remain free on board the ship for the remainder of the cruise.

“When I talked to security right after it happened, they had taken the people out and they were holding them there, waiting for the head of security,” Tom Stevens, one of three travel agents who coordinated the trip, told the Times. “Then the people just took off. They didn’t wait for security. I don’t know if security just let them go or if they just escaped. I felt there was some negligence there with the security.”

Stevens, who makes a living arranging tours such as the one on board the Monarch, added, “I’ve never been on a ship where I have had a group that was attacked like that. I felt Royal Caribbean, after the fact, is being very cooperative. They have a zero tolerance policy so they are cooperating 100 percent with the FBI, so there is a case going on and papers are filed.”

Despite the cooperation of Royal Caribbean after the ship returned to port, members of the gay and lesbian tour group reported that the assailants had been seen and heard throughout the cruise making anti-gay statements. After the attack they were allowed to remain on the ship unsupervised, even though Royal Caribbean policy clearly states that they will detain violent passengers for the safety of others.

“To give you a sense of how everybody felt, [my partner] was afraid to leave our room on Sunday,” Stouder said. “He really didn’t want to go anywhere on the ship and he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.… An awful lot of the members of our group didn’t feel safe after that and they especially didn’t feel safe when we heard that these folks were still roaming the ship.”

The ship’s security staff notified the FBI’s Long Beach office of the incident and agents boarded the ship to take reports when it returned to dock on Monday, Nov. 3. Those reports have been turned over to a federal prosecutor who will decided if further action will be taken against the assailants.

“We deeply regret that on this extremely rare occasion several of our guests were involved in an intolerable set of events,” Michael J. Sheehan, manager of corporate communications for Royal Caribbean said in a prepared statement. “We immediately reported the incident to the FBI, and continue to fully cooperate with officials as they continue to investigate events more closely. We also remain in contact with the parties directly involved. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide a more detailed account of these events due to an ongoing FBI investigation and privacy concerns.

“We are very proud of our vacation product and we are equally proud of the diversity of our guest mix,” Sheehan continued. “We absolutely will not tolerate anything less than the full respect and the honoring of the rights of all our valued customers.”

Despite the reassurances from Royal Caribbean, Stevens says that he wants the company to look into incidents like the one that occurred on this trip to make sure they don’t happen again, adding that the attack provides a textbook example of how hate crimes affect more than just the victim, in this case the group of 160 who were a part of the tour.

“It’s very important to me that this is resolved because I’m putting groups together like this for a good time, and if it turns into something ugly then it’s not good for anybody... If they are not willing to change their policies I am not going to book with them anymore.”