George & Stephan Sitting on a Plane, K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

Under the guise of ensuring airline security, the airlines have elevated bigotry and intolerance to a new level. Not only do you have to pass through onerous checkpoints and stay off the "no fly" list (without knowing the criteria for exclusion or inclusion), but now you have to pass the Mob Rule test.

In a recent Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker, AIR KISS, Lauren Collins describes a gay couple on a return flight from Paris was told that their affectionate conduct would cause a diversion of the plane if not stopped. She wrote:

The purser asked the men to describe what they’d been doing, and she acknowledged that their behavior had not been inappropriate. . .

Contradicting what she’d told them before, she stiffly said, “Kissing is inappropriate behavior on an airplane. . . .”

Half an hour later, the purser returned, this time saying that some passengers had complained about Tsikhiseli and Varnier’s behavior earlier. The men asked more questions. Who had complained? (She couldn’t say.) Could they have the stewardess’s name, or employee number? (No.) Would the purser arrange for an American Airlines representative to meet them upon landing at J.F.K.? (Not possible.) Finally, the purser said that if they didn’t drop the matter the flight would be diverted.

* * * *

Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American, said that the stewardess’s injunction to the men was reasonable, and would have been made whether the couple was gay or straight. “Our passengers need to recognize that they are in an environment with all ages, backgrounds, creeds, and races. We have an obligation to make as many of them feel as comfortable as possible,” he said. (He added, “Our understanding is that the level of affection was more than a quick peck on the cheek.”) But a customer-service representative named Terri, reached last week on the telephone, offered the opinion that kissing on airplanes is indeed permissible. “Oh, yeah! Sure. I’ve seen couples who are on honeymoons,” she said. “They just don’t want you to go into the bathroom together.”

What does this have to do with terrorism? Who is the arbiter of appropriate airplane behavior? The pilot? The flight attendant? Or is it the Mob Rule Rules?

And where will it end? We now have the anti-Arab flight rule, see Are Armbands Next? and the no in-flight prayer rule for Hasidic Jews, see Flying While Jewish. What's next? Maybe we could do the Segregated Survivor in the Air and have different flights by race and religion.

(Via Truthdig, Has American Airlines Banned Gay Air-Kissing?)

Tags: Civil Liberties, News & Media, Racial Profiling, Racism, Flying