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Uh Huh Her band mates and girlfriends Leisha Hailey and Camila Grey lit the blogosphere, and subsequently mainstream news outlets, on fire Monday when they began Tweeting that they were discriminated against on a Southwest flight for kissing, and then kicked off the plane for complaining about the discrimination.
Hailey, who starred on The L Wordfor six seasons, Tweeted that a flight attendant told them the airline was a “family” business and that they had to stop kissing. She later Tweeted that they were removed from the flight when they complained about the apparent discrimination.
Southwest issues an apology stating that the airline was sorry that Hailey and Grey had a less-than satisfying experience on the flight but that the officials had heard that the women’s behavior was excessive and passengers were complaining.
Now Hailey and Grey have gone on the record with a statement sent via their publicist that the kiss was a simple “peck on the cheek” and that they would be filing a formal complaint against the airline.
Here is the statement from Hailey and Grey:
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 labeled 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 behavior 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.
