Just A Kiss: Leisha Hailey and Southwest Airlines

So sad!!! Other than no longer flying SW I can raise my daughter to not only think differently but to stand-up to such hate. Sorry you had to go through that. There are many whome you know, many you do not that support you in this.

www.happyhourwithanxietygalandholly.com

This makes me sad and furious. They could have been totally making out with tongue and still should never have been kicked off a flight. Unless Southwest is willing to kick off every heterosexual honeymooner flying to cancun, they should have been left alone.

SW has "Issues": http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-22/travel/airline....

The good news: What was just a kiss has exposed a company for apparent hypocricy. The situation will also raise awareness of the level of intolerance that exists today.

Kisses. Powerful stuff.

I'm going to be following this story as it develops. I feel like the the other shoe hasn't dropped yet, especially with a formal complaint in progress, but we'll see.

Until the wrong is righted -- with more than that statement -- it's not our family airline either. We're willing to give second chances but only when we feel reassured that the same mistake isn't going to happen again. I cannot even begin to count up the times I have leaned over and kissed my husband on a plane without incident. The times he has held my hand during take-off. Anyone who enjoys that for themselves should be working to ensure that everyone gets that right.

I know we all cracked up from my daughter over Twitter last night (http://www.stirrup-queens.com/2011/09/southwest-ai..., but it's also heartbreaking to have these talks with her, to open her eyes to what happens in the world. She is of the mindset that the more brides the better, the more kissing the better, the more happy people in love the better. I hope she never loses that outlook.

Thank you for this post, Vikki, and for the update as well. Barring an heroic change of vision on SWA's PR people's part, I am ready to slice up my Southwest Airlines VISA card and find other ways to make the various plane trips I now make for work and the family vacations I plan for my family of four.

I wrote a ton of other comment stuff and just deleted it. All reasoned argumentation. The simple truth is, I've read what you wrote, I read what SWA wrote, I read the Autostraddle piece, I've read Hailey's statment, and I've read accounts of this elsewhere. An SWA employee did not tell the bigoted passenger that, all things being subjective, Hailey and her companion were not being vulgar nor were they running afoul of anything other than the complaining passengers' attitudes.

Instead–and without any checks from any of her higher-ups–she told Hailey and her companion that SWA was a "family airline," which, as you put it Vikki, is a code we totally understand. This whole system relies on all of us tacitly understanding that and some of us (the LGBT ones) remaining tastefully invisible.

I am not suprised Hailey was upset, and frankly, as diplomatic and conflict-averse as I am, I'll bet I would have been, too. To the point of being kickable off an airline? Who knows. I don't like to cause a fuss, but then again it's the conflict aversion of decent people like me that makes the bigotry seem more reasonable (because it's more familiar, and unchallenged) than the modest shows of affection from a minority couple.

Meanwhile MY family, all four of us (that's $1,832 plus taxes for a transcontinental trip for all of us, SWA, a drop in the bucket of what would have been many years and many thousands of dollars of brand loyalty) will be very glad take our business to an airline that understands the difference between family and bigotry, and trains and supports their staff to do so as well.

Leisha Hailey and her girlfriend, Camila Grey, have issued a formal statement regarding the incident.

http://www.msopr.com/press-releases/uh-huh-her-cam...

Vikki, great post. As you and Deb mentioned, of course we don't know whether this was a peck on the lips, a full-on makeout session, or somewhere in between. But let's be realistic -- Leisha Hailey is a grown woman, and not someone infamous for crazy media stunts. Odds are that it was no more action than you could show in a PG-13 movie, likely even less. Do I want to sit next to people smooching all over each other on the plane? Not really. But I didn't want to sit in a middle seat next to a gigantic Russian body builder all the way to Istanbul either. Air travel involves risks. ;)

I'm disappointed in SouthWest Air, and I'm totally down with the call for a boycott unless they make a serious public apology and promise to do some anti-homophobia training of their staff.

Well what can you expect when they kicked a toddler off a place recently for saying over and over "bye bye plane"? What an antisocial world this is becoming.

Ok seriously, I don't want to be stuck next to anyone making out - regardless of who they are. But that's really beside the point here. This two steps forward one step back mode of progress is painfully slow. Discrimination still exists, bullying still exists, racism and bigotry still exist, and we still have to stand up and say this is wrong every time we witness it.

Oh how I wish we were past it. I keep thinking if I wish it hard enough, it will happen. Soon.

i gotta say this really pisses me off. for a kiss? a simple kiss?!? oy. the hate and bigotry that is still alive today really scares me. it's why i try to teach my kids to love everyone and to be kind to everyone. i want to see the other passengers on this flight who weren't offended. i'd be speaking up out loud if i was one of them, for sure.

" There are people that will see any display of affection between at GLBT couple as excessive."

So well explained, Vikki. I have flown a lot, seen snuggling and kissing couples and only once have I ever seen a flight attendant interrupt any behavior--and that's because two people were in a bathroom together.

Southwest is using the phrase "comfort of all customers" as code for "please stay in the closet as you are making us uncomfortable." Which---no. Just no.