"90210" Actress AnnaLynne McCord Claims Southwest Airlines Discriminated Against Gay Couple
Actress AnnaLynne McCord is calling out Southwest Airlines for allegedly discriminating against a same-sex couple and their children.
On Friday, the 90210 star tweeted out a photo of two men and their daughters smiling in their seats. In an accompanying note, she explained that the clan was not allowed to board the plane when a Southwest employee called for "Family Boarding."
"These little girls were shown what has caused the detriment in our world; hate,” she wrote. “They were not allowed to board with the other families and had to watch as their fathers were told that they didn’t count as family.”
To make matters worse, it was the girls’ first flight.
“Why would your company representatives (the desk agents boarding the plane on behalf of your corporation) believe that it is okay to reject these little girls’ love for their fathers, making them feel that they are not good enough?" McCord asked Southwest. "That their family should be left out? Is that not a form of bullying? Is that not a form of hate? I certainly wouldn’t call it love.”
McCord suggested the airline hire employees "who despise hate, not love; who embrace difference, not look down on it.”
“Please, don’t allow your company to promote the hate that destroys the pure innocence of the love of a child,” she concluded, signing it “With an Absolutely Broken Heart.”
A representative for Southwest says it has not heard directly from the family, but insisted the airline “regret[s] any less-than-positive travel experience.”
“We have contacted the employees involved for an internal review of what happened... Southwest neither condones nor tolerates discrimination of any kind," they added. "A cursory view of our workforce and our expansive, multicultural customer base whose loyalism brings them back to Southwest is an endorsement and reliable indicator that we exalt, appreciate and celebrate diversity."
But this is actually the second report this year of a Southwest staffer refusing to allow a same-sex family to board as part of "Family Boarding."
In May, Grant Morse claimed he, his husband Sam, and their three children were forced to leave the designated family boarding area on a flight from Buffalo to Fort Lauderdale.
“This is for family boarding only,” an agent reportedly told Morse. “This is for family boarding only and you are not permitted to board." Once the family was finally allowed to board, they were forced to separate and their 5-year-old daughter had to sit between two strangers in a row by herself.
Earlier this year, Southwest featured Ethan Avanzino, a gay trans man, in a special Pride month video.