On June 9, a man boarded a U.S. Airways flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix, dressed in women’s panties, a bra, and thigh-high stockings.
No U.S. Airways employee at the Fort Lauderdale airport asked him to cover himself. Nor did any flight attendant ask him to do so. And obviously, no one demanded that he get off the plane.
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U.S. Airways spokeswoman Valerie Wunder was asked how the airline allowed a nearly naked cross-dresser to board a plane and sit next to other passengers who, one assumes, did not appreciate being seated next to an exhibitionist.
As reported by the San Francisco Examiner, she “said employees had been correct not to ask the man to cover himself. ‘We don’t have a dress code policy. Obviously, if their private parts are exposed, that’s not appropriate. . . . So if they’re not exposing their private parts, they’re allowed to fly.’”
The decline of American civilization since the 1960s has been so fast and so dramatic that it takes one’s breath away.
That a woman speaking on behalf of a major airline can say with a straight face that her airline allows anyone dressed or undressed to fly on its airplanes, so long as they do not expose their genitals, perfectly encapsulates this decline.
The only question is: How did we get here?
For one thing, the concept of decency is dying. I suspect that if an adult were to say to a group of randomly chosen American college students that this man indecently exposed himself and should not have been allowed to fly, that adult would be (a) not understood (what does “indecent” mean?) or (b) roundly condemned for intolerance and bigotry.
To judge this man as acting indecently — not to mention to bar him from flying — is to engage in violating the only values a generation of Americans has been taught: not to judge, not to discriminate, to welcome diversity, and to fully accept those who are different, especially in the sexual arena.
That is why I think it is very difficult to have a dialogue on this matter. For those who believe in public “decency,” the matter is as clear as a bell: This was profoundly indecent. And for those who do not believe in such a concept, the matter is equally clear: “Decency” is an anachronism.
One caller to my radio talk show simply could not understand my outrage at both the passenger and the airline. I asked my caller if he thought an airline should ban naked passengers. While he acknowledged that public nudity is against the law, he saw no reason that it should be so. Basically, I suspect that in my caller’s view, my opposition to this man’s being allowed to fly constituted a “hangup.”
So the god of tolerance is one reason for the death of the concept of “public decency.”
Another is the age of secularism in which we live. In a more religious America, the human being was regarded as created in God’s image, a being that ideally aspires to a level of holiness. As secularism proceeds with the increasing force of an avalanche, however, man is increasingly regarded as just another animal.
One way in which higher civilizations have demonstrated the human-animal difference has been the wearing of clothes. Animals are naked in public; humans are clothed. But secularism eats away at such religious ideals. Thus religion-based concepts such as holiness and decency die out. You can see it in the widespread acceptance of public cursing as well as in public exhibitionism, among many other manifestations.
I don’t know if U.S. Airways is alone among airlines in allowing anyone to fly as long as their genitals are covered. But it seems to me that if restaurants can post dress codes and announce that they reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, an airline — in which people, unlike in restaurants, are forced to sit two inches from strangers — should be able to do so.
In the meantime, this is the Brave New World that mindless tolerance and diversity — and lawsuits in their behalf — have wrought.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.
The answer is no, there is no decency anymore. It died during the clinton administration following a long lingering illness.
Some say that it is still alive in small towns in the southern and western states, but rest assured that the ACLU will continue its relentless hunt for extinction.
The real problem is that we practice a subtle form of intolerance. A cross dresser is tolerated but if somebody speak out because offended is not. If a Christian considers homosexual marriage a scandal he is an intolerant bigot, when a Muslim does the same we must accept his diversity. This is tolerance used selectively as a weapon in the attempt of destroying our most cherished principle: the right of politely disagree. Once this right should be taken from us the first amendment protection of free speech will ring as hollow as the airlines excuses.
"As secularism proceeds with the increasing force of an avalanche, however, man is increasingly regarded as just another animal."
Indeed, a school in Sweden is seeking to ban the pronouns "him" and "her" because they do not want to create confusion among the children about their genders. The only other pronoun left to describe a singular entity is "it". We describe animals with the pronoun it; I guess that means we'll be doing the same for humans. Brave New World indeed.
Likely TSA tacitly approve this dress code as it facilitates a quicker safety check...allowing a hastier retreat to the break room.
Soon the new TSA unions will be dictating passenger dress rules for this purpose.
Just imagine - if only 90 year old wheel chair bound leukemic women would dress this way, then TSA staff could avoid those donut delaying 45 minute WMD diaper pat-downs.
On a slightly more serious note - dressing behavior of this nature (even by our diminished decency standards) is atypical to say the least. Such behavior immediately warrants closer scrutiny. Here is a passenger who quite reasonably could have a weapon hidden in a body cavity (disguised as a pleasure generating device perhaps??)
Perhaps he did have a more thorough exam (hopefully of the digital variety). But I’d wager not. And that is truly frightening as we have a system that pays 3 TSA agents to work over a 90 year old for 45 minutes while true high risk behavior types are ignored.
That truly is indecent as well as dangerous and demoralizing!
(PS I write about digital exams and CAPTCHA is stool pigeon...unbelievable)
Hmmm... I seem to remember a year or so back, there was a model or beauty queen or something that got kicked off a flight because the flight attendants thought her skirt was too short? It was a pretty big deal at the time... she was on Hannity (among others) and everything.
I wonder how the airlines can square the two? If it's a beauty queen... i.e. an idealization of the straight, male patriarchal concept of female sexuality, then she needs to cover up, because she's offending liberated feminist sensibilities with her oppressive miniskirt and heels.
But if it's a male in a bra and panties, then he's a liberator; a proud defender of human rights against the hetronormative concept of binary gender and the other tools of the patriarchy which have been used to enslave humanity for thousands of years.
Interesting how afraid the US Airways representative was of offending the cross-dresser (a single individual) when there was probably an entire plane full of people who were disgusted with the behavior. Truly a "tail wags the dog" moment.
Also, the position taken by US Airways is kind of idiotic...it is well within the rights of any business to deny service to anyone acting indecently. Not only was this person's attempt at puerile "shocking" behavior excuse enough to bar him from boarding (disruption of flight) but there are also ample public decency laws (upheld by the Supreme Court) that could be applied to this persons "behavior"...
Truly a sad story.
But to the broader point of public decency - our society will only reverse this decline once parents start teaching their children decent behavior. Is it any wonder to anyone that with an entire generation of children essentially neglected by their parents and left to the "system" to educate them on proper moral behavior, that this would occur? This is a failure of the American family and unless parents are willing to do the hard work of raising their children instead of merely "providing" for them, society will only continue to slide.
Decency has been traded in for enforced tolerance. That is what passes for societal glue in the world of elite libertines and kowtowing serfs.
Watch out. When they discover the weakness of its adhesive power, they'll attribute the societal disintegration to the willfulness of those who believe relationships can't be forced.
A few commentors have noted the truth of it: Of course there's still a sense of decency. It's just that it's been changed so as to be unrecognizable to many. Objecting to the guy's attire is indecent, as are all "judgements". His attire was not "indecent" in this Brave New World.
(Remember that, in Huxley's book, "my father" was indecent, but not to a shocking degree; "my mother" stopped traffic. That's about where we're heading.)
The only thing or group that we are allowed to be absolutely intolerant of is conservatives, especially pro-life conservative women such as Palin and Bachmann.
This never would have happened, had he been wearing an anti-Islamic or anti-Obama tee shirt. That would have brought down the full wrath of the TSA and the airline. But, a half-naked crossdresser, well, that's a different story, children. . .
The fact that the man made national news for his antics means there *is* a sense of decency, and he violated it.
The issue is the airline itself. I imagine the airline does not want to mess with what people can and can't wear. What one person might find offensive another might see as freedom of expression. They have no skin in the game, so they prefer to stay neutral to avoid litigation.
Just as an aside, this is not about LGBT rights. He's a cross-dresser, not gay or trans*xual. It's a fetish thing. Or maybe he's just having a laugh. He's a 65 year old business consultant. Or at least he was before all this mess....
I likely would have reacted the same way as the airline employee did, disgusted though I am with this man's antics. He was likely trying to trigger a lawsuit that would have paid him at least $100,000 just to get lost. More if he gambled and pushed it to the bitter end. The airline as acting more along the lines of CYA than PC.
Wasn't there a South Park episode with this theme?
What we have here is a pathetic plea for attention, with the added motive of easy money from a lawsuit.
At least the passenger in question behaved consistently: his outward appearance was ugly, in accordance with his likely motives. Utterly out of touch with life's purpose.
It is not mindless tolerance that is taught in our culture. Those who espouse "tolerance" are completely mindful of what they do not tolerate. Tradition itself is not tolerated but is deliberately targeted for ridicule and derision. In their world militant decadence is honored while propriety and modesty are ridiculed. It reminds me of Psalm 12:8 "When that which is is vile is honored among men, the wicked freely strut about".
We have only lost decency when we stop complaining loudly when this sort of thing happens.
The airline should get the message in no uncertain terms that their answer was just not good enough protection of the flying public right to fly without be subjected to fellow passengers dressed only in their underwear.
Oh, c'mon - there wasn't even ONE New Yorker on the flight saying "Get me outta here!" at the top of their lungs???
This just doesn't ring true to me. I've never been on a flight when someone wasn't saying something too loudly and voicing their opinion about the world in general when no one cares. Someone walks on the plane dressed like this and no one says ANYTHING? Yeah right. The smartphones were working overtime on that flight, I guarantee it.
If shame has been "lost", it is up to us to rediscover it. We should be pointing him out verbally as abnomal and as a freak. Let's face it, of the thousands and thousands of people that flew that day, he was the only one that dressed that way. That would be a clasic definition of abnormal or freakish behavior.
Point him out to your children and explain that he has "problems" and probably needs a ticket to the psych. ward more than a ticket to Phoenix! Public shame and comments that are heard are the answer to the barbarians in our midst.
This isn't about being nice and tolerant. Why do we, in the majority, always have to be tolerant of the freaks? How about we make the freaks tolerant of us and get them to behave like the rest of us?
P.S. My capta is "ladies first". Someone has a sense of humor!
