NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Southwest Airlines kicked a woman off one of its flights over a political message on her T-shirt, the airline confirmed Thursday, and published reports say the passenger will sue.

Lorrie Heasley, of Woodland, Wash., was asked to leave her flight from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., Tuesday for wearing a T-shirt with pictures of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a phrase similar to the popular film title "Meet the Fockers."

A spokesman for Southwest Airlines (up $0.20 to $15.21, Research) told CNN that the airline used the "common sense" approach when they decided to escort Heasley from the plane in Reno, Nevada, during a stopover between Los Angeles and Portland, Ore.

The airline felt that the T-shirt was offensive and that other passengers would be outraged by it, the spokeswoman said, adding that the incident is about "decency."

"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 in midflight over a T-shirt. That's not freedom."

According to the airline spokeswoman, Heasley was asked to leave after she refused to cover up her T-shirt, an account that conflicts with Heasley's version in the Gazette-Journal.

Heasley told the newspaper that she agreed to cover her shirt with a sweatshirt, but it slipped as she slept. After she was ordered to wear her T-shirt inside-out or leave, she and her husband chose to leave, the paper said.

The 32-year-old lumber saleswoman said in the report that no one from Southwest said anything about the shirt while she waited near the gate at Los Angeles International Airport, nor did anyone mention the shirt as she boarded the aircraft.

Southwest Airlines (up $0.20 to $15.21, Research) spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told the Gazette-Journal that the airline's contract with the Federal Aviation Administration contains rules that say the airline will deny boarding to any customer whose conduct is offensive, abusive, disorderly or violent or for clothing that is "lewd, obscene, or patently offensive."

FAA spokesman Donn Walker told the newspaper that no federal rules exist on the subject.

"It's up to the airlines who they want to take and by what rules," he was quoted as saying. "The government just doesn't get into the business of what people wear on an aircraft."

Heasley wants Southwest to reimburse her and her husband for the last leg of their trip and pay for her gasoline, a $68 rental car from Avis and a $70 hotel bill, according to reports.

First off, this isn't news & screw CNN for wasting their resources reporting stupid shit like this, and secondly the airlines don't owe this chick a dime. I'm assuming her shirt said "Fuckers" on it and if they choose to ask her to turn it inside out for the sake of passengers who may not want their children exposed to it then she should quit being a bitch and just do it.

id like to see the shirt.

If I was this woman I would demand more than just the price of the ticket and gas. Her freedom of speech was violated, and its fucking sad that self-expression in this country is preached, but not tolerated.

Oh, horse shit her freedom of speech was violated. The airline is a private business and can make any fucking rule they want about how they expect their passengers to be attired.

While the airline may or may not have had the right to remove her from the plane, I'd still like to find the person who made this decision and kick him or her in the crotch.

Why?

Who pissed in your Corn Flakes?

This is a News and Debate Forum. Some see this issue differently than you. You have every right to DEBATE and express your opinions, but don't be dingleberry. If you want to bitch and moan about what CNN reports or what I put up as a thread, make your own goddamn thread.

Great....now I am all pissed off now. Fucker.

You mis read me, man. I wasn't dogging on you for posting it at all. I think its worth debating. I was only making the point that its asinine with all the real issues and news that could be reported on by a major news organization like CNN they choose sensationalistic crap like this.

Perhaps the airlines should be more concerned about security than stupid shit like this.

Security is most definately their highest priority but they also have the right to dictate certain codes of conduct to their passengers. And holding this chick up as some kind of hero of free speech is just laughable to me.

OK...my bad. I put the wink in there at the end just in case.

Well shit, I guess I am the dingleberry now. Cheers!!

a lot of things went wrong with this. first, while the woman has the right to wear the shirt, there's a point in time when she should have realised that she wasn't going to win the arguement. she could have turned the shirt inside out, zipped up her sweatshirt or wrapped an in-flight blanket around herself.

the airline should have handled this better. if she managed to get through the entire check in line thing without incident, there's a pretty good chance that she would have made it through the flight without incident too. instead of demanding that she turn her shirt around as soon as she stepped on the flight, they could have just watched and if something happened, they could have asked her to fix her shirt or tried to move her to a different seat.

having said that, i don't think she has the right to demand reimbursement for her expenses. she had the option to stay on the flight and cover her shirt up. she chose to get off.

i don't know. it's messy all around.

Nah, I actually re-read my initial post right after I submitted it and thought there was a chance you might interpret it as you did. I tripped up on the semantics. But hey, you might still be a dingleberry for all I know.

Word up sista'. Life is messy like dat.

She's only asking to reimbursed for the last leg of the flight, and the hotrel and car for staying over in Reno. Seeing as how the airline waited until Reno to be offended, that doesn't seem to be too much to ask. At least to me.
That much being said, and as much as I can't stand the Bush administration, I wouldn't want my kid staring at that t-shirt for a couple of hours.
Maybe I would have felt the need to say as much to her, but not have her kicked off mid flight. There are better ways of making a statement.

Could they not have just donated her an appropriate shirt to slip over it, or had her turn it inside-out? It seems like there's a better solution. Perhaps they tried, but the article didn't seem to suggest they did.

I may be repeating opinions here, but my take is as follows:

Southwest should have the ability to reserve the right to deny customers access to their services. That being said, if I were the Southwest CEO, I couldn't give a shit on what people wore on my planes as long as they were paying for the service.

I seriously doubt it said "Meet the Fuckers" since that wouldn't be a pun.

What happened to the Love Airline?