Stop the ACLU Thursday

Should private businesses and corporations and groups be allowed to enforce their rules and regulations, as they see fit? For the most part, I think so. Of course, the ACLU thinks differently.

AP: Wash. Woman Booted Off Plane Over T-Shirt---

A woman was booted off a Southwest Airlines flight for wearing a T- shirt that bore an expletive and images of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Lorrie Heasley of Woodland, Wash., said she plans to press a civil- rights complaint against the airline over Tuesday's action at Reno- Tahoe International Airport, halfway through Heasley's scheduled trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore.

"I have cousins in Iraq and other relatives going to war," Heasley told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "Here we are trying to free another country and I have to get off an airplane ... over a T-shirt. That's not freedom."

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said several passengers complained about the shirt.

Heasley, a 32-year-old lumber saleswoman, said passengers began complaining after she and her husband, Ron, moved to the front of the cabin in Reno.

She agreed to cover the words with a sweatshirt, but when the sweatshirt slipped while she was trying to sleep, she was ordered to wear her T-shirt inside-out or leave.

She and her husband left. They arrived home in a rental car Wednesday afternoon.

McInnis said Southwest rules allow the airline to deny boarding to any passenger whose clothing is "lewd, obscene or patently offensive."

But Allen Lichtenstein, lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union in Las Vegas, said it "might be problematic" that the airline "changed rules in the middle of a flight."

Heasley said she has been in touch with ACLU lawyers in Seattle, and wants Southwest to reimburse her for the last leg of the trip.

Actually, it is freedom---the freedom of a private company to decide what to allow.

Southwest Airlines' Contract of Carriage policy, Section 10, clearly states:

F. Comfort and Safety - Carrier may refuse to transport or remove from the aircraft at any point any passenger in the following categories as may be necessary for the comfort or safety of such passenger or other passengers:

(1) Persons whose conduct is or has been known to be disorderly, abusive, offensive,
threatening, intimidating, or violent, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene, or patently offensive;

Other passengers complained, so the Southwest Airlines workers were clearly within the rules of the private company to ask Heasley to cover her shirt. Obviously, if Heasley took the request to cover the shirt seriously, she would have put the sweatshirt on, not just used it as a sort of blanket (as I infer from the story).

And now, since a private business expected her to comply with it's rules while using it's services, Heasley is acting like a whiney baby. She has contacted the ACLU and wants Southwest to "reimburse her for the last leg of the trip."

Why? Why should Southwest have pay a stupid woman because they enforced their own rules?

Even if someone allowed her on the plane with the shirt and then they threw her out, Southwest was still within it's rights. Other passengers complained. Southwest's policies state that a passenger may be removed as a result of patently offensive clothing, for the comfort of other passengers.

The ACLU doesn't seem to understand that private companies can do things and have policies that government cannot. If a person sets up his own company, he ought to be allowed to create his own rules and policies, and enforce them as he sees fit, within the limits of the law (of course, no torture, murder, or abuse should be allowed).

If a company makes a policy that prohibits skirts of a certain length or the wearing of jeans, then that is the company's perogative, not the ACLU's business.

If you don't like working there (or flying that airline), then don't work there (or fly with them).

The ACLU really has no business interfering in this non-issue. No one was injured or maimed. No one's rights were violated. The argument that Heazley's civil-rights were is completely ridiculous. What about the rights of other people not to have to read an expletive? More people were offended by Heazley than offended Heazley. Perhaps they ought to file lawsuits against her.

The ACLU seems to think it has the right to interfere and press cases against private groups, companies, etc., just because someone does not agree with what a group, company, etc. stands for or has as policy.

The Boy Scouts are a perfect example. The Boy Scouts didn't want a gay man to be a Scout Leader. Since the Boy Scouts are a private organization, shouldn't they be allowed to determine the qualifications for leaders. After all, the oath taken by all Boy Scouts and leaders declares that:

On my honor I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my country

Doesn't the Boy Scouts have the right to prohibit gays, athiests, and others who are in opposition to Boy Scout Beliefs? Don't all private groups, organizations, and companies have the right to decide on the qualifications of employees?

Of course, the ACLU doesn't think the Boy Scouts should be able to.

And we all know about the ACLU's relentless campaign against churches. We hear about some lawsuit against religion, by the ACLU, just about every week.

What will it take for the ACLU to allow private citizens to do what the citizens see fit with their own groups, businesses, and organizations?

After all, the ACLU is, itself, a private organization (nominally, at least). Perhaps some day some one will turn the ACLU's tactics back towards the ACLU. Wouldn't that be fun?

Read today's Stop the ACLU Blogburst, The ACLU's Euthanasia.

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