Southwest Removes Passenger With Politically Offensive T-Shirt

All Headline News ^ | 10/6/05 | Moore

[conservative son of liberals]

"Actions have consequences."
Not according to liberal philosophy. As far as the left is concerned, it's always someone else's fault. I have never seen a group of people less willing to take responsibility for their own actions then liberals.

[MJemison]

So. She was just trying to get attention. Vile woman.

[brytlea]

I don't care who the word was about, it is still considered very offensive language by many people. And the bottom line is that Southwest is a private business with a dress code, and were within their rights.
I say Bravo, and if I flew, I would fly Southwest!
susie

[ChildOfThe60s]

There is nothing to be torn about here. The woman was being publicly vulgar. And doing it deliberately to offend.

SW has the right to set standards of dress for their customers. That's why (for the same reason) you don't have to sit a restaurant full of people eating in their underwear. Even if a political slogan is printed on their underwear.

Attaching the name "Bush" to public vulgarity does not turn it into protected speech. Typical shell game of the wacko left.

And, YES, it would still be vulgar if it said Hillary (oops, I know that sounds like a double meaning, but it's not in this case).

My kid is grown, but I don't like having to explain garbage like that to children in public. The woman is, plain and simply, a crude, vulgar, leftist that has no class and is determined to annoy as many people as possible. It ain't that complicated. Case closed.

[ichabod1]

ou got it, Dumb Ox. If I saw that shirt I'd be surprised to see Southwest take action in this day and age, but I'd be cheering when they did. I just hope some Clinton appointee doesn't decide to find them liable or guilty of something. I'm sick of all the foul language in public. Who do these people think they are exposing other people's children to that garbage?

When I was about 8 I was wandering in the woods near our house and I saw the F word spray painted on a road bridge over the bayou. I came home and asked my Mom what it meant. She asked me if I'd like my mouth washed out with soap. It was an innocent question! Course by the time she passed away a few years ago she would use it too at times, but she never approved of the coarseness of modern culture. Neither do I.

[colorado tanker]

If it were a shirt with Bill and Hillary with similar text, would you be mad she was thrown off?

Nope. When I'm squeezed into one of those cattlecars with nothing but a bag of pretzels to hold me to the next airport, I don't want my nose rubbed in someone else's bad taste.

Why don't Americans understand that just because we mostly have the right to be rude, crude and offensive in public, we don't have to be?

[RonF]

Heasley told the Reno Gazette-Journal, "Here we are trying to free another country and I have to get off an airplane in midflight over a T-shirt. That's not freedom."

Yes it is. The airline is free to throw your ass off the plane if they don't like your T-shirt, and you're free to fly another airline, and to take out an ad telling everyone why you don't like Southwest.

What would be the antithesis of freedom would be if you could force the airline to transport you against it's will.

[HitmanLV]

Sure. I don't think that the t-shirt was 'politically' offensive. I do think that it was crude and I don't have a problem with airlines having any kind of reasonable policy when it comes to dress.

I think they might have asked her to change t-shirts because it contained a profanity. If she refused, I could see them being reasonable in tossing her from the flight.

Without some kind of standard, anything goes. How about nude passengers? How about a man wearing a thong bikini bottom and nothing else? How about a woman who is topless?

I don't think that having and enforcing a basic standard of conduct or dress is problematic. Within that context, I could see how a profane t-shirt could get one invited off a flight. I hope she got a refund, though.

[beckett]

Large venues throughout the country deny admission to people wearing offensive t-shirts, which is why you won't see, for example, any "F*** the White Sox" t-shirts on Angels fans.

Companies have a right to deny service to people spouting obscenities, even if it's only displayed on their shirt.

[willyboyishere]

Yeah, JETBLUE would NEVER do this!!! (Actually , I don't know)---But I did recently see someone wearing this t=shirt in public. Real Cute. Seems like Lorrie Heasley is some kind of provocateur---or she's confused and sending her own self mixed messages: she wears the t-shirt in public, then when she's called on it, she "acknowledges" that we are trying to "free a country", and YET, force people like her to get off planes. See, she's pointing out the "contradiction" there, in the numbingly literal-minded way only the Left is capable of. Maybe she was just in the wrong place with the wrong T-shirt: It was, after all, our own AIRPLANES that were used as WEAPONS against us. As such, the airline has a case that the passenger, in presenting herself that way , was inspiring a terrorist who could have been aboard, or could be inspired TO board a plane at a later date, starting the whole 9-11 nightmare all over again. But in the final analysis it looks like Heasley was doing this with the best/worst case scenario in her mind being that she could get thrown off the plane.

[RedRover]

I find it hard to imagine that Clinton-haters would wear such a t-shirt. We have a much more highly developed sense of humor than the Libs. But, if it happened, I would support SW giving such a t-shirt wearer the bum's rush.

[texan75010]

If it's about political speech and not about an offensive word, then why didn't the reporter spell out the entire word?

[Kenton]

Just knowing this beyotch would be the first to complain if something offended her...

[yobid]

The dress code on planes has been reduced to greyhound status anyway. A while back, I was on a flight when a large group of bikers got on the plane wearing their "colors". When they took off their jackets and stashed them in the overhead, most were wearing tank tops. I'll never forget the guy with the huge hairy armpit hovering over this poor old women's head when he was stuffing the bin. By the end of the flight they were all hammered telling whoever that would listen that they were heading for a funeral for another biker. Now, I ride too but c'mon....tank-tops on airplanes?

[Personal Responsibility]

Actions have consequences.

No they don't and how dare you suggest they do ! All actions are predetermined and intractble. They are solely caused by the suffering, humiliation and racist beliefs of othrr people.

This woman obviously had such a hard life wrought with such challenges and obstacles she had to overcome that she had no choice but to wear that shirt! How dare anyone suggest differently!

I condemn you on the altar of Political Correctness!

[pettifogger]

Southwest Airlines has confirmed today that it removed a woman from one of its flights over a political message on a T-shirt

A spokesman for Southwest Airlines told CNN that the airline felt that the T-shirt was offensive, adding that the incident is about "decency."

the airline will deny boarding to any customer whose conduct is offensive, abusive, disorderly or violent or for clothing that is "lewd, obscene, or patently offensive."

Don't you love the MSM's spin? The headline and lead sentence imply that the REASON she was kicked off the flight was that the message was political. Indeed, the writer went so far as to say that Southwest CONFIRMED it removed her "over a political message." Southwest, it appears, did not remove her because of the political nature of the message, but because of the lewd, obsence and highly offensive term used in the message itself.

Thanks, algore, for inventing this internet thing, so we can continue to point out the incompetent and blatant bias of the leftist media.

[jaydubya2]

"I have a t-shirt that has a picture of Hillary as Hitler, and the other night I actually was approached by the owner of a diner that asked me to leave because it would "offend" his largely blue-collar Union customers. I told him to go pound salt."

Since the Diner is privatly owned property, I would think that he was in the right to tell you to leave if he did not like your attire or if he felt you were offending his customers.

[RockinRight]

Oh, I did leave. After I told him to pound salt. Didn't want to be there if I wasn't wanted.

[Hildy]

I don't know...if I saw a shirt with Hillary, Bill and Madelaine Albright and it said ... "MEET THE F***ERS, I'd probably giggle.

[Brilliant]

I suspect that if it hadn't used the "f" word, it would have been OK.