Lesbian actress booted off Southwest flight for 'excessive' PDA

[HYHYBT]

First, using reading a book as an example is the exact opposite of muddying the issue, because the precise purpose of doing so was to choose something that cannot possibly rationally be offensive so as to clear away questions of how much is too much, because that wasn't the point I was trying to make.

Second, I was not saying that screaming and yelling at the flight attendants is OK, or should not get you put off the plane. If you believe I was saying that, go back and read again until you see otherwise. I was saying that 1) "would you please stop x" is, in practice, a demand unless you are free to decline; that there are activities which it is Unreasonable (not illegal, but unreasonable) for the flight attendant to demand that you stop even if someone is complaining (the appropriate reaction would be to tell the complainers to shut up. Politely, of course.) And go ahead and throw in that I see nothing wrong with acting as if the demand were the polite request it pretends to be and answer with a polite "no thank you, I believe I'll keep on." You'll still have to stop, but at least then it's the flight attendant being belligerent as well as unreasonable

I'd have given this whole thing up if people didn't keep reading things into what I say that are not even remotely there, imagining premeditation and conspiracies when there's no sign of any such thing, etc.

[Gravekeeper]

GK, you've been in Canada too long, in the good "family friendly" American southwest one person can claim that they saw a lesbian couple acting innapropriately and there is guaranteed to be at least some people around them who may have witnessed nothing that will back them up just because that is what they percieve typical lesbian behavior to be.

No offence smiley, but you have so much bias over these issues that your arguments always go right to the other extreme.

I was saying that 1) "would you please stop x" is, in practice, a demand unless you are free to decline; that there are activities which it is Unreasonable (not illegal, but unreasonable) for the flight attendant to demand that you stop even if someone is complaining (the appropriate reaction would be to tell the complainers to shut up.

But making out is not one of these activities. Someone reading a book next to me is reasonable on a flight. Someone snogging is not. This is occuring on private property. So again, I fail to see what you're trying to get at here. What point is there in arguing the semantics of whether its a request or a demand?

As for conspiracy and premeditation... the scenario is this:

Now you're jumping through hoops to try and change your original scenario to avoid both definitions and still not quite succeeding.

Your original scenario:

"Just suppose that, say, they'd only been holding hands, and happened to be seen by someone who didn't approve, told his friends an exaggerated version or whatever, and then they all complained."

Conspiracy: "a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose" "any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result."


"Or, suppose they (or Generic Couple B) were doing nothing whatsoever, just sitting there, and someone with a grudge against them noticed they were on the same flight and got the complaints started."

Premeditation: "The act of speculating, arranging, or plotting in advance." The grudge holder spotted them and tried to come up with a way to get them in shit. Unless you're likewise going to add yet another qualifier to avoid the definition and say he just had an immediate Eureka! moment and immediately knew just what to do to get those pesky lesbians in trouble! -.-

I'm not imagining anything. I'm just using a dictionary. You're thinking of conspiracy and premeditation in a legal sense. Which is a different beast alltogether.

[smileyeagle1021]

No offence smiley, but you have so much bias over these issues that your arguments always go right to the other extreme.

bias and extreme aren't always synonymous with wrong, as the saying goes even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Gravekeeper]

bias and extreme aren't always synonymous with wrong, as the saying goes even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Sorry, but I fail to believe the best explaination for this is a spontaneous homophobic conspiracy. -.-

[Canarr]

It does seem kind of unlikely; unless there was a group of people travelling together, who felt an immediate surge of rage at the mere existence of lesbians, and started a chain of complains.

But, Occam's Razor and all, it does seem more probable that there was at least some level of PDA above a single kiss that started the compaints. That doesn't mean that a hetero couple would not have gotten a bit more leeway; but, since there was no hetero couple reported doing the same thing on the same flight, that remains speculation.

They did something that people found disturbing. People complained to the flight attendant, who asked them to stop. And no, it is *not* unreasonable to be asked to stop PDA in a plane (other than reading a book would be). They got belligerent with the flight attendant and were booted off the plane. Serves them right.

[Gravekeeper]

Occam's Razor states they likely did something protracted to garner enough attention from other passengers to trigger the incident. Coupled with what I'm betting is a Southwest procedure or policy that states flight attendants must quickly address the source of a complaint in order to ensure the overall comfort of the passengers on board.

As I said, if it was an overzealous or bigoted attendant, Southwest would have thrown her under the bus so fast it'd make your head spin and distanced themselves from her actions. But instead, Southwest's CEO came out backing his employees. Which means he heard enough from the crew and passengers to convince him these two were snogging it up.

Honestly at this point, considering how minor of an incident this really is vs how overblown and dramatic her reaction was, she's giving her cause a bad name. Public opinion is already starting to teeter and she's being accused of using this to drum up publicity for her tour next week.

[Nyoibo]

bias and extreme aren't always synonymous with wrong, as the saying goes even a broken clock is right twice a day.

True, but the rest of the time it's just straight up wrong.

[Evandril]

First, using reading a book as an example is the exact opposite of muddying the issue, because the precise purpose of doing so was to choose something that cannot possibly rationally be offensive so as to clear away questions of how much is too much, because that wasn't the point I was trying to make.

Second, I was not saying that screaming and yelling at the flight attendants is OK, or should not get you put off the plane. If you believe I was saying that, go back and read again until you see otherwise. I was saying that 1) "would you please stop x" is, in practice, a demand unless you are free to decline; that there are activities which it is Unreasonable (not illegal, but unreasonable) for the flight attendant to demand that you stop even if someone is complaining (the appropriate reaction would be to tell the complainers to shut up. Politely, of course.) And go ahead and throw in that I see nothing wrong with acting as if the demand were the polite request it pretends to be and answer with a polite "no thank you, I believe I'll keep on." You'll still have to stop, but at least then it's the flight attendant being belligerent as well as unreasonable

I'd have given this whole thing up if people didn't keep reading things into what I say that are not even remotely there, imagining premeditation and conspiracies when there's no sign of any such thing, etc.

As I've asked, multiple times, if the flight attendant is brought complaints from multiple customers, should they say "No, that activity is fine, you're wrong", or should they let the single customer know their actions are bothering others? Lets say it was you were reading a Quran, and others had a problem with what you were reading, and told the attendant you were reading something obscene or the like. Unless you are unskilled in customer relations, or really don't care about keeping your job, you are going to at least tell the customers you'll look into it. When you approach the customer reading, and they show you the problem *CALMLY*, they will most likely be asked politely to not be as obvious about it. Is it fair or right? Not really...but any business is going to prefer losing one customer to multiple customers?

[HYHYBT]

Of course they should look into complaints. But if they're baseless, they're baseless. Go back to the complainers and say "I'm sorry, but they're not doing anything."

(Especially if what they're doing is reading something like the Quran. Which is worse, a few customers who complain to higher-ups that you wouldn't make someone stop reading a book, or a religious discrimination lawsuit?)

As for the other... this is the first I've ever heard of *any* definition of "premeditation" that includes spur-of-the-moment actions. If you don't like the book as an example, try holding hands.

[Gravekeeper]

As for the other... this is the first I've ever heard of *any* definition of "premeditation" that includes spur-of-the-moment actions. If you don't like the book as an example, try holding hands.

Might want to check your local laws then. In some states premeditation is legally applicable even if it was considered for only a matter of seconds before the crime occurred. All that matters is the individual had time to rationally consider their course of action and thus had established intent beforehand. -.-

[smileyeagle1021]

Sorry, but I fail to believe the best explaination for this is a spontaneous homophobic conspiracy. -.-

Nor do I expect you to, I don't know if that is what happened (I don't doubt though that homophobia at least played a small part in it, if at no other level than a heterosexual couple may have taken longer to get complaints lodged against them), but I am not going to rule it out, because it is a viable possibility (even if not a probable one).

[smileyeagle1021]

True, but the rest of the time it's just straight up wrong.

it's not a perfect analogy

[Hyena Dandy]

It rather is, I think, that's the point of it.

[Gravekeeper]

Nor do I expect you to, I don't know if that is what happened (I don't doubt though that homophobia at least played a small part in it, if at no other level than a heterosexual couple may have taken longer to get complaints lodged against them), but I am not going to rule it out, because it is a viable possibility (even if not a probable one).

I would not rule it out completely either. But I'm going with the simpliest explaination until she proves otherwise ( Still waiting on that alleged video of hers ).

But setting that aside, her reaction has been childish and embarrassing. So I don't put a lot of faith in her when she says they were not making a "spectacle" of themselves. Then turns around and admits they got thrown off the plane for making a spectacle of themselves. -.-

[Andara Bledin]

You know what I find interesting?

There's lots of talk about filing a formal complaint, and no comment that a formal complaint has ever been filed.

You'd think, with this having happened on Monday, that something more than angry tweets and press releases would have happened with nearly a full week having passed.

^-.-^