Woman Gets Booted Off a Plane for Anti-Bush Shirt
It's one thing to ask someone to cover a shirt that could be deemed offensive before boarding a plane.
It seems to me that it's a whole other thing if you allow that same person to check in and board the plane, then wait until the plane is halfway through the flight before making a big friggin' deal over it and booting her off during a stopover.
Again, it's probably just me.
UPDATE (10/06/05, 11:27pm): I (heart) Yellow Dog! He did some digging and found that Southwest just loooooves Bush - hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of love.
It seems to me that it's a whole other thing if you allow that same person to check in and board the plane, then wait until the plane is halfway through the flight before making a big friggin' deal over it and booting her off during a stopover.
Southwest Airlines kicked a woman off one of its flights over a political message on her T-shirt, the airline confirmed Thursday, and published reports say the passenger will sue.
Lorrie Heasley, of Woodland, Wash., was asked to leave her flight from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., Tuesday for wearing a T-shirt with pictures of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a phrase similar to the popular film title "Meet the Fockers." ...
According to the airline spokeswoman, Heasley was asked to leave after she refused to cover up her T-shirt, an account that conflicts with Heasley's version in the Gazette-Journal.
Heasley told the newspaper that she agreed to cover her shirt with a sweatshirt, but it slipped as she slept. After she was ordered to wear her T-shirt inside-out or leave, she and her husband chose to leave, the paper said.
Again, it's probably just me.
UPDATE (10/06/05, 11:27pm): I (heart) Yellow Dog! He did some digging and found that Southwest just loooooves Bush - hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of love.
by MG at 4:53 PM
28 Comments:
I wonder if the airline has ever kicked off someone for a GWB T-shirt, or a "Kiss Me I'm A Neo-Con" t-shirt.
Ugh, now I have to wash my laptop with soap, just writing the above has contaminated it.
She was booted off because the Shirt had the F-Bomb. It was not Fockers it was Fuc*kers.
Not a Free speech issue.
A Obscenity issue.
I hate them too, but if I wore a shirt saying "f*&king die, and f*(k you, and pretty much f*ck anything", I would expect a reaction like that in public places. Let's not forget that Free Speech does not give carte-blanch for indecency in a public space.
How would you feel if your 6 year old who just started to read saw that?
Let's save the funny(I laughed my ass off when I saw this story because of the T-Shirt), yet offensive T-Shirts for a rock concert, not domestic airline travel.
>*<
end my two bits...
When I was six I was already reading pretty much any and everything. I went to the ladies and read F * CK and proudly announced it to my mom in the check out line, "Hey mama! It says "F*CK YOU in the bathroom, what's that about?"
Lets forget about wrapping our little darlings in cellophane until they are 21 and let them be human f*cking beings.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
I couldn't agree with you more annonymous, but not all people feel and think that way. We shouldn't miss the point of amusment however, that this could start.
She could have choose another option instead of leaving the plane, but because of the state of politics today, everybody wants their chance to say "hey, I am pissed off!"
Let's make sure that when those like us all attempt to say that; we don't lose grasp of why we are saying it.
Freedom and liberty comes at a price, but decency of our fellow man is a right everyone has inherently given to them. The airline just knew how some would view it as offensive, and made a choice for their PR and the other passengers on board.
it's not a violation of freedom of speech, or "if you're not with us, you're against us" attitude. it's plain offensive for some people to see profanity, and I feel sorry them; but would this have made national TV if it simply said "meet the fOckers"....I am willing to guess it wouldn't.
Just trying to say, let's not discredit our creditability, when we all are seeking the truth, and opposing this tyrant of a mouse known as the Bush Corporation; let's make our points with intellegence, instead of 15 seconds of fame.
Sorry I deleted this post because I didn't feel like double-posting. But I forgot to add that for the next NIN concert I am going to, I will proudly be wearing my T-Shirt with a simple picture of DubYah on the front, and the back will read F#$K BUSH in large bold lettering (spelled correctly though, I am only being polite to those who read this)
Boycott the airline.
Boycott Exxon/Mobil.
Boycott the lot of them.
Yee-haw, vote with your dollars. Only language the black-heart neo-cons understand.
Yeah, But to put someone off a plane for a T-Shirt is outrageous. Let them as complained leave, lets stop using "children might see it and be ruined" as a lame excuse to allow our rights to express ourselves in public be trampled on. There is no reason an airline should have the right to quash so-called "offensive speech" anymore than I have a right to demand that you salute when I raise a Nazi flag in the square. The Nazis did demand it y'know, and we are quickly getting to that point.
I don't know for certain what was written on that T-Shirt, if it was Focker or the other more anglo-saxony one but in either case they have no right to restrict free speech like that.
Do they demand that folks with confederate flags cover them? Do they demand that folks with liquor ads on their shirts cover those? What about a "Hail Satan" T-Shirt? If they kick about Satan they better be kicking about Jesus too.
Where do people get the fricken idea they have a right to go where ever they choose without seeing anything that they disagree with or that hints at a semi-sexual word? What hypocrisy! Folks sit there in a seat hurtling along at 600 mph reading a lurid slut mag like Cosmo and thats fine and dandy, but let someone have an opinion with Fock in it and its "scram liberal, you have to walk from Alberquerque!"
BTW I got tired of being anonymous.
I agree with moxie that if it was an obscenity issue they should have caught it before the flight took off. In VA where I live it is illegal to have an obscenity displayed in public. I was a passenger when a friend of mine got a ticket for a fukingruvin sticker on her volkswagon. For a while they were even ticketing the peeing Calvins here but they must have relaxed the rules on that one.
They shouldn't have a right to make a big deal about it 1/2 way through the flight though. What's really achieved by doing that?
All that said, I really want one of those shirts!
Man, for real?
Tickets for Fukingruvin?
I'd be wheatpastin' my shiny ass off in that town.
Sub Human
lmao!!
It's a state law, and it's mostly state troopers that give the tickets far as I know. The local cops are a bit more forgiving at least around here.
I've done quite a bit of wheatpasting myself as of late...
I've begun hitting these on telephone poles and the like near all of the local churches on Sat nights... (warning graphic)...
http://replacementsneeded.tripod.com/
especially this one...(this one's not graphic at all)...
I've been kind enough to just scotch-tape them on the church doors.
They seem to find a way to remove them though, but it sure aint easy.
I'm fighting my own war against this war.
Welcome to the public eye "not-so"annonymous any more...about the 6 year old comment I made;
I hope someone brings their 6 year old to the Concert, so they can see my T-Shirt. It would be the best education they get, but I don't want to be on TV for it.
Sorry, I don't believe in hiding things from our children either, even the obscene parts of our lives shouldn't be feared, just learned from.
I didn't mean to be anonymous. I just didn't have experience with this format.
hrm, well people who own the airplanes has the right to kick her off the planes, *it there airplanes company, they can do whatever they want *almost everything*
but it is kinda stupid thing to do, to kick her off at a stopover. it either the airplane helpers *sorry don't know the right name of it* is a right-winger i love bush than life it self. or he/she was just doing her job. umm.. i have to side with the company on this one. yeah it sucks, yeah they should of said some thing before.
OFF TOPIC??
Doing a search for C-SPAN related comments on blogs, we found MOXIE GRRRL comments on Blame Bush, Liberal Larry's blog.
Couldn't read all of the comments as we are trying to make the rounds and remind C-SPAN Junkies, and would be C-SPAN Junkies, of the Oct 7th and 8th 25 hour call in marathon on C-SPAN.
Support more C-SPAN.
http://www.cspanjunkies.org
The Citizens for C-SPAN Companion Networks,
http://www.thecccn.org
(forgive the side bar)
Yeah, I think Lib Larry people secretly love me or something. I Think I may have made one comment, like in March or something, so if you ever see any more, it's one of the juvenile happy little idiots over there.
When she boarded the craft she was asked to cover the shirt. She covered it by hanging a sweat shirt around her neck.
She claims that it must have "slipped off" when she fell asleep. However, when she was confronted for a SECOND time, she was ask to wear the sweat shit to cover it or turn the offensive shirt inside out.
This is rude of the woman.
What if the shirt had a piture of Hitler and read F*ck Jews!
It is offensive.
It's fine that she has no scrupples.
She did this on Purpose to offend.
Next time you buy a plane ticket, keep in mind that you are paying for the stupid law suite.
She double F8ucked us.
Actually, I think I have to agree with Iggy here. If she was wearing a shirt that said "f*ckers" instead of Fockers, and just draped the sweatshirt instead of wearing it, it was obscene and offensive. Southwest was just stupid to kick her off at a layover. They should have put a stop to it before the plane took off.
The reason I say this is that the school I went to had issues with obscenity and national television coverage. One time a camera inadvertently focused on a student wearing a "F*ck Duke" t-shirt, and everybody got all mad. If I remember correctly, there was talk of pulling out of some lucrative television contracts because of stuff like that. To this day, there's an ongoing debate between students of said school (who are pretty much the "free speech" crowd) and the alumni who don't want to hear/read the offensive chants/shirts or have their children exposed to stuff like that at basketball or football games.
Basically, both parties in this airline case handled things poorly. The passenger show little taste in travelling in something potentially offensive, and the airline just handled it incorrectly from the get-go. They should have said "cover your shirt or don't get on this flight."
Obviously this woman is already good and pissed off about the administration, and she was probably just WAITING for someone to get in her face about her shirt.
But if I were a flight attendant on that flight, here's what I would have done:
Lean in to her and whisper "Hey, I really like your shirt, but I'm getting hassled to asked you to cover it/turn it inside-out/change it, because there's kids on the flight and other people are getting offended. The airline has a profanity regulation, too, so people that get offended might sue (roll eye here)... Would you mind just covering it up for the flight so we don't have some crazy person get angry? I'd really appreciate it - hey what do you drink? I'll make sure to bring you something. By the way, did you make that yourself or buy it somewhere? My sister would LOVE one..."
There. The flight attendant is now on the side of the activist, and had made it clear that it's a "company policy" and that other people who make a stink about it are being wusses.
If I was in that situation, I'd be happy to take my free drink and think the attendant is in my corner. Situation completely averted for approximately $3.
Great way of handling the stifling of free speech without causing a nuclear incident Moxie.
If a service is offered to the public do the providers really have the right to censor the speech in the venue of the service? If they do then how can we call it free speech at all? Its only a step from someone making the claim that the street is kept clean and safe and if you want to wear a t-shirt on it, the t-shirt better not have any controversy on it. They have asked folks to leave the Mall for having anti-bush shirts.
Now schools, planes, buses, then housing projects, neighborhoods, community centers etc. Its a very real slippery slope.
If someone wants to wear a Hitler shirt with fuck jews on it and its America, he damn sure has a right to do it and not be thrown off the plane. If someone on the plane wants to get off, let 'm. If someone on the plane starts violence or whatever, then you have to deal with that. The airline has to allow free speech. If on the other hand a passenger is wearing a shirt that says "I have a bomb" then it ventures into not protected speech, but hating jews or gays or Christians is a very nice red herring folks are apt to drag across the trail to derail a free-speech argument. But in America if we are to have free speech the most vile and hateful speech deserves full protection or no speech is protected.
Haven't read through all the comments, so don't know if some of this is repeated. But, here's some things to consider.
1- An airline (or ANY private corporation) has EVERY right to refuse business to anyone if that person displays a behavior or image or whatever that the business disagrees with. The Constitution applies to what the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT can and can't do. No one from the gov't told this woman she couldn't wear the shirt. Heck, the airline didn't even say she couldn't wear the shirt. All they said was "If you wear that shirt, we do not wish to do business with you--get off at the next stop." It is no different than you, as an individual, telling someone to get out of your house because you don't like what they're saying.
2- Was she told to leave because it was an anti-Bush shirt, or was it because of the obscene language? We don't really know.
3- Ms. Heasley's version of events is somewhat questionable. I'm rather suspicious of how the shirt supposedly (by accident) slipped out from under a sweatshirt while she was sleeping in a airplane chair. Doesn't sound likely.
4- Assuming Ms. Heasley had the shirt visible before boarding, why is it that the airline chose to wait until they were in the air to object? If they objected to the shirt, they should have refused to let her board, not asked her to leave mid-trip.
5- Was she given a refund? As stated in #1, the airline has every right to refuse her business. But in doing so, they are obligated to refund any and ALL money collected from her for services not rendered. And if it ended up costing her more money by being booted mid-trip than it would if they had refused to let her board in the first place, then they owe her that additional expense as well.
6- Not related to this specific incident, but I find it rather interesting (and laughable) that most of the people who support putting restrictions on free speech "for the public good" also vehemently oppose putting restrictions on firearms because the 2nd Amendment "applies to all 'arms' and cannot be narrowed".
Phil
http://nomadechoes.blogdrive.com
Yer wrong Phil.
An airline doesn't have the right to deny service to a member of the public for his speech if its a service offered to the public at large. Organizations used to claim similar rights to deny service to prevent blacks from eating at lunch counters.
Its America, its a public space, Americans have the right to speak freely in public space, all public space, otherwise there is no such thing as free speech. There is only "tolerated by the owners of the space" speech.
Do you really want to live in an America where the only place you can speak up is in a National Park?
In Virginia, you are not allowed to wear such a shirt in public.
The political nature doesn't matter, but you cannot display or utter the F word, or several other words determined to be obscene under the law. Her shirt said "meet the fuckers", not fockers.
It's not a free speech issue. It's the same thing as when a musician or the like says a curse word on stage they are often arrested for doing so here, and in many other states. It's been that way for a looooong time here. I worked for several years as a local stagehand at the Hampton Coliseum here when I was younger and have seen that happen dozens of times.
After my friend got ticketed for her fukingruvin sticker, I regrettably scraped off my "Don't like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT" sticker accordingly, before I too got asked for my autograph.
Sans-cullote:
This is a sign of the erosion of our rights we have permitted. There is no free speech in VA as long as that anti-obscenity rule stands. We desparately need to unsettle the "straights" wear F*ck you T Shirts, Wheatpaste the seven deadly words all round the preschools etc. to reclaim our freedom. Adults who think pre-school kids dont know and say all the seven deadlys are deluding themselves or total hypocrites.
Now I dont know the policy here and I wouldn't censor myself if I didn't think it was a vital message.
Moxie knows how hard one has to work to get a tiny scrap of free(way) speech out to the public. Freeway blogging and wheatpasting are my way of pushing the envelope a tiny bit.
People have attempted to intimidate me with nasty notes on my truck for the bumperstickers, do you really want to allow the police to stifle free speech for the likes of those uptight ass wipes?
Sub Human said...
Yer wrong Phil.
An airline doesn't have the right to deny service to a member of the public for his speech if its a service offered to the public at large.
Sub Human you are wrong... although the airline offers a public service, the fact remains that the "plane" is private property, the same as, oh say a store that has "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" on it's door. Just because a business offers a public service does not make it any less private property. And in no way can this be compared to segregation, and it is almost racist of you to compare obscenity to the denigration of a human being.... I'm just saying.....
If you serve the public and you are in America you do not have the right to deny seats to gays, blacks, Jews, or people with political shirts or even people with "offensive" language on their shirts. Now folks might let a property owner manage his public space in such a way that ignores the above infringments, cops might even join in and help deny your rights, and even if you dont like it the ACLU is going to fight to allow an American the right to wear that very Bush shirt or pin or that shirt that just says what a "Pheasant Plucker" that American is. Those cops are wrong, the airline is wrong, and obscene speech if it isn't protected, then no speech is protected. If some venues are free from free speech all venues are free from free speech.
Or do you disregard the aphorism: "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
If you think that private property rights in a public service situation supercedes our rights to free speech and if the majority of Americans agree with you (The majority can be wrong as anyone. The majority once thought the sun went 'round the earth!) then we have already lost free speech as a right and should stop pretending we have it.
As a mother of a 5 year old, I can't understand all these people that agree with her being kicked off the plane because their kid might read it.
That is the problem with America anyway, we expect other people to bow to our "perfect children" and shield our children from things that are solely our responsibility to shield them from.
If your kid is of reading age and has ever used a public restroom, goes to public school, has sat at a park's picnic table or has EVER been in public, your child has read and heard this word before and maybe worse.
Granted, I would be embarrassed to wear such a shirt in a public arena, BUT when did swearing (verbally or written) in public become illegal? If it has, I am in some deep sh*t.
Free speech has to allow the speaker the right to upset people or it isn't even a tiny bit free. Of course one isn't free to yell "FIRE" or joke about bombs in an airport, but obscenity and racial epithets ought to be protected speech. If violence ensues from either, that is the crime, not the speech.
You want to make a special case for Airlines? Why not cafes and street fairs and then Public Parks etc etc. You'll see that once you let property ownership rights determine what is free and what isn't you have ceased to live in a free society. You now live in a world where your rights have been sold to the highest bidder.
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