Airline Reportedly Forced Woman to Change ‘Hail Satan’ Shirt
A woman was reportedly forced to change her ‘Hail Satan’ shirt by American Airlines before a recent flight from Florida to Las Vegas. According to Buzzfeed News, the AA flight crew found the shirt to be offensive and asked Satanic Temple member Swati Runi Goyal, 49, to either change her shirt or get off the plane.
The Satanic Temple is a non-theist organization, meaning they don’t actually believe in the existence of Satan. Rather, the Temple is more of an activist group and social club focused on issues like separation of church and state, religious freedom, free speech and women’s and LGBT+ rights.
“Our crew has found your shirt to be offensive,” a flight attendant reportedly told Goyal. "We initially just thought it was a joke,” she recalls, “But he repeated the directive, and there was another female crew member who was behind him with her arms crossed looking very angry."
"The man said, ‘Your shirt is offensive. Do you know what that means?’" Goyal said. "I said, ‘I’m a foreign-born minority woman, I understand ‘offensive,’ and this shirt is not offensive.’"
Goyal claims she’s worn the shirt during multiple flights in the past. After Goyal and her husband refused to exit the plane, the husband lent Goyal one of his shirts to cover her ‘Hail Satan’ shirt. The patrons say they were ignored by the crew for the remainder of their flight, even when the drink cart came around.
"I’m just an ordinary-looking person," she said. "I’m not goth. I don’t have piercings. I wasn’t wearing a shirt that had a goat being beheaded on it. [I was] wearing L.L. Bean hiking pants and vegan sneakers. I mean, I couldn’t look like more of a nerd."
The American Airlines website does list their policy that passengers are required to “dress appropriately” and avoid “offensive clothing,” though specifics on what could be found offensive are not mentioned.
"Our flight attendants have a responsibility to all passengers in our care, and we must sometimes make difficult decisions associated with the application of our policies," an AA rep told BuzzFeed News. "We apologize to Ms. Goyal for her experience, and we are reaching out to her to understand what occurred," added AA spokesman Ross Feinstein. [via Metal Injection]
The 66 Best Metal Songs of the Decade: 2010 - 2019