Posted on 10/06/2005 1:47:52 PM PDT by crazyhorse691
RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A woman was booted off a Southwest Airlines flight for wearing a T-shirt that bore an expletive and images of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Lorrie Heasley of Woodland, Wash., said she plans to press a civil-rights complaint against the airline over Tuesday's action at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, halfway through Heasley's scheduled trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore.
"I have cousins in Iraq and other relatives going to war," Heasley told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "Here we are trying to free another country and I have to get off an airplane ... over a T-shirt. That's not freedom."
Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said several passengers complained about the shirt.
Heasley, a 32-year-old lumber saleswoman, said passengers began complaining after she and her husband, Ron, moved to the front of the cabin in Reno.
She agreed to cover the words with a sweatshirt, but when the sweatshirt slipped while she was trying to sleep, she was ordered to wear her T-shirt inside-out or leave.
She and her husband left. They arrived home in a rental car Wednesday afternoon.
McInnis said Southwest rules allow the airline to deny boarding to any passenger whose clothing is "lewd, obscene or patently offensive."
But Allen Lichtenstein, lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union in Las Vegas, said it "might be problematic" that the airline "changed rules in the middle of a flight."
Heasley said she has been in touch with ACLU lawyers in Seattle, and wants Southwest to reimburse her for the last leg of the trip.
Sigh.
Hasn't already been decided that the 1st amendment protects people from being censored by the government?
Southwest is a private airlines.
Just north of Vancouver Wash, Bay. South of Longview. Used to be a VERY conservative area. (past tense)
Paying customers.
Taking a flight isn't a right.
watch her run for Dem senator and the media call her a moderate
Women wore their nicest dress, men worse their best suit.
The stewardesses were all young, gorgeous, and served meals worthy of 5 star restaurants.
Many aircraft were fitted with sleeper berths for passengers and had a "lady's lounge" for keeping up "in flight appearances".
Sadly, that is all from a time long since passed. When air travel became affordable to the masses, (with the arrival of the 747) it simply became another form of mass transportation.
"She agreed to cover the words with a sweatshirt, but ... the sweatshirt slipped while she was trying to sleep
Yeah right. Whoopsie!! That's absolute balderdash. This is all a stunt."
Yup. Intentionally trolling for a payoff.
It was obscene, there is no right to obscene speech.
And has a life partner that a girls PE teacher at the local High School. And is bitter and angry at/with life. Hopefully the state will codify it's "right to die" law, and she'll be the first taker.
Southwest is not part of our government and should be able to restrict the speech of passengers if it wants to. If the idiot doesn't like Southwest, she does't have to fly Southwest.
Please tell me it was during the flight.
I'd like to know the name of the lumber firm she works for.
Meth addicts are skinny...this chick is so fat...the t-shirt was a billboard....
Hopefully she had a parachute.
Are you kidding? Someone playing the accordion on an airplane? Talk about air rage. I would have been in those little plastic handcuffs in notime after punching the guy.
How is this for a standard. A business asked a customer to get off of its property? They should give her money back and not allow her to fly in the future.
How is this for a standard? A business asked a customer to get off of its property? They should give her money back and not allow her to fly in the future.
"It was obscene, there is no right to obscene speech."
That's a different argument. My point was that merely because other people are offended is not enough reason to ban speech - if for no other reason than Christian symbols would quickly be banned everywhere because someone claimed to be offended.
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