"Skipping and a-jumping/ In the misty morning fog with Our/ our hearts a-thumping/ And you, my brown-eyed churl/ You, my brown-eyed churl."

A prime slab of rural North Carolina bubba is celebrating dodging jail time for trying to run down a gay couple during a Key West, Florida booze-up in February.

The Miami Herald reports,

Brandon Ray Davis, 30, admitted calling Kevin Paul Taylor and Kevin Seymour “faggots,” and yelling, “You’re in Trump country now!” on Feb. 23 on Duval Street in Key West and smashing his scooter into Seymour’s back bike tire. 

“I landed on my feet, that was the luck of it,” Seymour said Wednesday, after the hearing in which Davis received four years probation, 75 hours of community service and was banned from tasting alcohol for two years. 

Judge Wayne Miller said the injuries suffered — a flattened bicycle tire and a chain knocked off — weren’t enough to warrant a day in jail after Assistant State Attorney Colleen Dunne asked for 60 days behind bars. 

Originally arrested for felony aggravated battery, Davis was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge Wednesday at the Monroe County Courthouse in Key West. 

Taylor and Seymour watched Wednesday as Davis called his fiancée and two family friends to the front of the court to testify that whatever he did at about 1 a.m. Feb. 23 in Key West was completely out of character. 

This may be translated to read, "We also never saw him drunk in a winter season gay vacay mecca without his girlfriend before, either."

Davis also played a time-honored card issued to all gay-bashers:

Davis also has an openly gay friend, a professional, his attorney noted, who wrote one of 30 letters of support. 

Then Davis turned toward the two men he threatened in a drunken stupor four months ago, walked toward them from the court’s center and offered to embrace them. 

“My heart goes out to you guys, every bit of it,” Davis said to Taylor and Seymour, who were seated in the front row behind the prosecutor’s table. “I’m asking you to come put your arms around me, take my hand.” 

The two men were silent.

 The Herald account continues,

The incident Feb. 23 began when Seymour and Taylor watched a scooter rider almost run head-on into traffic on Duval Street from Truman Avenue. Seymour called out to the man and Taylor asked him if perhaps he should be walking, given his drunken demeanor. 

Davis responded hatefully, the men said, calling them faggots, asking if they wanted to suck his penis and noting they had probably come from a nearby gay bar. Then, Davis added they probably voted for “that b---- Hillary” and that they were “in Trump country now!” 

The couple left the scene but Davis followed them for nearly five blocks, ramming Seymour’s rear bike tire with his scooter tire. 

“He wouldn’t let us get away from him,” Taylor said. 

“I tried to save this man’s life,” Seymour told Miller, the judge. “He tried to end mine.” 

When the couple told Davis they were calling police, they said Davis replied, “If you call the cops I will cut that faggot body up,” and told them he was a correctional officer. 

In court, Davis presented himself as a landscaper.

Davis is a resident of Richlands, NC- "A Great Place to Grow", population 1520- in coastal Onslow County.

His comment about Trump country was more aptly made of his home turf than of Key West. Onslow County voters cast a straight Republican ticket in 2016, giving Donald Trump 64.97% of their votes. The only candidate to exceed Trump was defeated Governor Pat McCrory, who ran the most anti-LGBT campaign in decades. He won 65.12%.

Trump eked out a sliver of a win in Monroe County with 50.97% of the vote.

The Herald concluded:

Miller also ordered Davis undergo a substance abuse and a psychological evaluation and take anger management classes. A portion of his community service must be LGBTQ-related. 

“I haven’t said I haven’t had an alcohol problem,” Davis said in court, looking at the couple. “I’m asking for your forgiveness, more than anybody.”

Davis seems a prime candidate for membership in the new pro-Trump North Carolina gay organization, Deplorable Pride. Its chair- and one of three members, Brian Talbert- welcomes people of all sexual and political orientations, and has been rallying support from national anti-gay media to boycott Charlotte Pride's August festival for not granting him a permit for a patriotic 27-foot float bearing flags, a Statue of Liberty, and drag queens in Make America Great Again evening gowns.

Onslow County, NC was formed in 1734 and so is not named for the lovable slob of Keeping Up Appearances.