| NOTE: Some postings may have been deleted at the discretion of Ben Boxer. Erotic pictures posted on the regular version of the list are automatically deleted
from the digest and are archived separately. Viewing them requires a password
available only to members. Profiles posted to the list are also moved into a separate viewing area, but do not require a password. Please click here to browse through them.
silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue: -Fw: Bumped him for kissing boyfriend ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 07:38:27 -0800
Subject: Fw: Bumped him for kissing boyfriend
Headline:
(Miami Herald, 11/23/00)
Text:
``This is a case of complete
prejudice,'' said Robert Jorge, 28, in
an interview at the Miami
International Airport's hotel bar soon
after the incident.
Jorge said he was humiliated and will
sue the airline.
But Jenny Jenks, a spokeswoman for
the airline, said Jorge's sexual
orientation was never an issue.
She said the head pilot, Capt.
Sciandra, returned the plane to the
gate because Jorge and his six friends
had come on board with an open
bottle of wine.
``The captain made a decision not to
take any chances,'' she said.
After the group got off the plane,
Mexicana officials gave them hotel
accommodations, meal vouchers and
guaranteed Thanksgiving Day seats
on Aeromexico. Both airlines are
owned by the same company.
``Mexicana took a preventative action
that at any point they could be, again
could be, disruptive,'' she said.
Nonsense, said Robert Norris, one of
the seven who got off the flight.
``If we were drunken fools getting off
their plane, why would they be doing
everything they can to compensate?''
he said.
According to Norris and Jorge, a
flight attendant asked them to put
away the wine they were carrying
about 15 minutes before the plane left
the gate. They say they complied.
They said the kiss between Jorge and
his partner, who asked not to be
identified, took place while the plane
was taxiing onto the runway. It was
immediately followed by a visit from a
second, hostile flight attendant, Jorge
and Norris said.
``The rage in her eyes, it was utter
rage,'' said Norris. ``I heard her say,
`You can't hold hands,' and `You are
disrupting passengers.' ''
Jenks declined to let The Herald
interview Sciandra or the flight
attendant, whom she identified only by
the last name Mendez.
Meanwhile, the group -- many of
whom had nothing to change into
because they had checked their
luggage -- spent the evening smoking
cigarettes at MIA and calling friends
and family with the news.
``We should have been there already,''
said Jorge, who works for an Internet
company in Miami. ``But I think
everything happens for a reason.''
Norris said he finally understood,
albeit in a very small way, how it
might have felt to be black in the
1950s.
``I've never had to experience this,''
he said.
But Jorge Mursuli, chairman of
SAVE Dade, a gay-rights group, said
he was not surprised to hear the
men's account.
``There are some people that are
uncomfortable that there are gay
people living their lives with dignity. . .
. I think they want us to live in the
closet. They want us to feel badly
about who we are.''
Mursuli, a former flight attendant,
said he didn't believe a bottle of wine
would be reason to stop a plane and
kick passengers off.
``It's about a homophobe in a position
of power. That's why discrimination
laws need to be in place.''
------------------------------
|