Camila Grey and Leisha Hailey "No matter how quietly homophobia is whispered, it doesn’t make it any less loud. You can’t whisper hate," is the powerful response from Leisha Hailey to Southwest Airlines' jumble of excuses for throwing her and her girlfriend off a flight, after they kissed. Hailey, an actress and musician known to lesbians and bi-women worldwide for her role as the loveable but fiery Alice Pieszecki on The L Word was bundled off the plane along with her girlfriend and Uh Huh Her bandmate Camila Grey. While offering an apology and refunds, under-fire Southwest Airlines is also claiming Hailey and her girlfriend were ejected for their aggressive reaction and "profanity" when they were confronted about their public display of affection by flight attendants. Southwest Airlines claims that in addition to their "excessive display of public affection," Hailey and Grey were using "profane language" and were kicked off the flight over their "aggressive reaction" to the flight attendants. "At least one family who was offended by the loud profanity moved to another area of the cabin," it says. "Although we have reports of what Customers characterize as an excessive public display of affection, ultimately their aggressive reaction led to their removal from the aircraft. "We do not tolerate discrimination against anyone for any reason. In this situation, their removal was directly and solely related to the escalated conversation that developed onboard the aircraft." Hailey has released the following powerful statement in response: We have always promoted tolerance, openness and equality both as a band and as individuals. We both come from loving homes where our parents not only love and accept us, but are also proud of who we are. We believe everyone has the right to live openly in this society as equals. In no way were our actions on Southwest Airlines excessive, inappropriate or vulgar. We want to make it clear we were not making out or creating any kind of spectacle of ourselves, it was one, modest kiss. We are responsible adult women who walk through the world with dignity. We were simply being affectionate like any normal couple. We were on the airplane less than 5 minutes when all was said and done. We take full responsibility for getting verbally upset with the flight attendant after being told it was a “family airline.” We were never told the reason the flight attendant approached us, we were only scolded that we “needed to be aware that Southwest Airlines was a family oriented airline.” No matter how quietly homophobia is whispered, it doesn’t make it any less loud. You can’t whisper hate. We ask this airline to teach their employees to not discriminate against any couple, ever, regardless of their own beliefs. We want to live in a society where if your loved one leans over to give you an innocent kiss on an airplane it’s not labelled as “excessive or not family oriented” by a corporation and it’s employees. We find it very disturbing that the same airline who lauds itself as being LGBT friendly has twisted an upsetting incident that happened into our behaviour being “too excessive.” The above is not an apology and we are in the process of filing a formal complaint with the airline. We hope that when all is said and done a greater tolerance without prejudice will evolve.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 28th September 2011 - 2:20pm