Alaska Air: 10% surcharge if sexually normal

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Quietly and with no fanfare, Alaska and Horizon Airlines are offering travel specials that are only available to gays, lesbians and transgendered individuals. Ordinary heterosexuals? Well, you’re just out of luck.

Alaska and Horizon employees received an email on September 13 about a “very soft launch” of a new Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual &

Transgender (LBGT) “micro-website” that is devoted to people who practice non-normative sexual behaviors, and offers them special deals unavailable to those who are sexually normal.

When one employee complained that this was “reverse discrimination,” since there is no “micro-website” for heterosexuals, or for Blacks or Hispanics for that matter, the employee was informed that it made no difference to corporate officials because the LGBT community represents a “gigantic profitable segment of the market.”

Sure enough, if you go to Alaska’s special “Gay Travel” section of the website, you will discover that a special 10% discount was offered this fall for LGBT travelers to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico (Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air Promotions: VIVA Puerto Vallarta and LGBT). Of course, this meant that heterosexuals paid, in essence, a 10% penalty for the same trip for being, well, sexually normal.

But it’s not too late: Switch your sexual orientation from heterosexual

to anything else, and you can immediately qualify for a special 10% discount for your holiday travel to New York City. All you have to do is enter a special discount code “when you purchase your tickets at alaskaair.com/gaytravel.” (Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air Gay Travel - Save 10% on Travel to New York City). I

If you’re an ordinary heterosexual, once again be prepared to pay what amounts to a 10% surcharge for being sexually straight.

Says Alaska, “Whether it’s your first flight with us or your 400^th, we are thrilled to have you join us. In ‘Our World,’ diversity abounds. From the land of the Midnight Sun to the beaches of Mexico and Miami, from historic Boston to the desert of Palm Springs and Tucson, alaskair.com is a welcoming resource for our LGBT travelers.”

Alaska has a special page devoted to flights to LGBT events such as “The 5^th Los Angeles LGBT People of Color Film Festival,” the “8^th Int’l Conference on Gay and Lesbian Tourism” (Ft. Lauderdale, FL), “Atlantis Events’ Largest Gay Cruise in History” (Miami, FL), the “International Foundation for Gender Education ‘Transgender 2008’” (Tucson, AZ), and the “Dinah Shore Weekend in the Desert” (Palm Spring, CA) [which leads the ordinary observer to say, “The Dinah Shore Weekend in the Desert?” What is that all about?].

Alaska has received a rating of 95 from the Human Rights Campaign as a gay-friendly airline.

What to do? Next time you check in to fly Alaska or Horizon, courteously express your disappointment that Alaska is pushing the homosexual agenda and offering special fares that aren’t available to you. (Print out a copy of this Daily Update to hand to the agent at the counter if you are challenged on this.)

The pro-homosexual folks at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) have provided a helpful shopping guide for the pro-family community by identifying the businesses that, in their judgment, are least supportive of the radical homosexual agenda.

Topping their list of businesses they urge homosexuals to avoid – and by implication, urge the pro-family community to support – is Wal-

Mart, which received just a 40 (out of 100) on HRC’s “Corporate Equality Index” (CEI). HRC would much prefer you shop at Target, which graded out at 80, its score evidently boosted by kicking the Salvation Army bell ringers off their property several years ago.

Other family-friendly places to shop for Christmas gifts: Toys ‘R Us, RadioShack and AutoZone.

On the other hand, businesses that grade out as big-time supporters of the gay agenda, in addition to Target, include Best Buy, Sears, K-Mart, Land’s End, J.C. Penney, and Macy’s.

WHEN IT COMES TO CHRISTMAS, SOME RETAILERS ARE “NAUGHTY,” OTHERS ARE “NICE”

Our friends at Liberty Counsel, a pro-family organization dedicating to defending our First Amendment rights, has produced its annual list of retailers who openly mention Christmas in their advertising, as well as those who seem to avoid the term like the plague.

On the “Nice” list are retailers such as Bath and Body Works, Bed,

Bath and Beyond, Big Lots, Cabela’s, COSTCO, Dillard’s, Hallmark, L.L. Bean, Linens ‘N Things, PetSmart, T.J. Maxx, and Wal-Mart.

On the “Naughty” list, you’ll find Ace Hardware, Banana Republic, Circuit City, Gap, Home Depot (no mention of Christmas anywhere), Kohl’s (“Hanukkah” section but no “Christmas” section), Nordstrom, Office Max, Old Navy, ShopKo, and Staples.

Your response? When you shop at one of these places, ask to speak with the store manager, and either commend (if they’re “Nice”) or complain (if they’re “Naughty”).

Perhaps the simplest thing we all can do is make a point of wishing store personnel a “Merry Christmas” regardless of the greeting they give us. If they say, “Happy Holidays,” ask them if they are prohibited from wishing customers a “Merry Christmas,” and if you find they are, do two things: register your friendly complaint with the store manager, and send the details of your encounter to me. Let’s see who’s “Naughty” and “Nice” in Idaho this time of year.

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Ø The Colorado county sheriff who acknowledged the religious foundations of Christmas in a recent website column is now under investigation by county commissioners for his views. One commissioner said that he wonders if a county website “is the correct, proper place” for the sheriff to air his view of Christmas, a view, incidentally, shared by every one of our Founding Fathers. (Our constitution, for example is dated from the year of Christ’s birth.) The commissioner’s concern is that the posting of the sheriff’s thoughts on the official website “shows county approval.” Well, we certainly can’t have a county going on record as agreeing with our Founding Fathers, can we? (WorldNetDaily: County investigates sheriff for supporting Christmas)

Ø House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding up an appropriations bill for the FBI and the Justice Department because it contains an amendment that protects the right of the Salvation Army and other businesses to insist that their employees speak English on the jo

b. Pelosi’s resistance comes despite the fact that federal law since 1906 has required new citizens to show “the ability to read, write and speak ordinary English.” A recent Rasmussen poll revealed that 87% of American voters (and 80% of Hispanics) think it is “very important” that people speak English in the U.S. Unbelievably, an agency of the federal government, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sued over 200 American employers last year over English-only rules. In California, despite a state law against bilingual education, seven school districts have sued the state to put a stop to English-only testing. Said Sen. Lamar Alexander, “We are now celebrating diversity at the expense of unity.” (OpinionJournal - English-Only Showdown)

Ø The old media looked silly when it called waterboarding a form of torture, especially when students waterboarded each other in a demonstration against the practice, but now they look even sillier by hysterically saying that “tasers (are) a form of torture.” Yes, a practice which reduces the need to use lethal force in law enforcement – as well as batons and pepper spray - is now being branded a weapon of torture used by trigger-happy policemen, and Amnesty International is looking to the U.N. to ban all tasers. One opponent of tasers admitted that police do need “a safe way to subdue people,” but offered no suggestions as to what exactly that “safe way” might be. (CBS Early Show Touts UN Labeling of Tasers as 'Torture' | NewsBusters.org)

Ø Two ideas are floating as replacements for the current cumbersome federal tax structure, and either would be vastly preferable to our current system. One, the Flat Tax, would give a family of four a generous $39,000 deduction wi

th a 10% rate of taxation on income beyond that figure (25% for families with incomes of over $100,000, which is fundamentally unfair; simple justice dictates that all taxpayers should pay at the same rate.) The Flat Tax form would have five lines and could be filled out in minutes. The other, the FairTax, would replace the entire tax code with a national sales tax of 23%. The FairTax would eliminate all corporate, business and personal federal income taxes, all payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes and estate taxes. (Townhall.com::The FairTax -- The Truth::By Neal Boortz; OpinionJournal - Flat Tax Fred)

Ø The modern environmental movement is fundamentally anti-human, and regards man not as God’s vice-regent with divine authority to exercise benevolent stewardship over the planet but as a noxious weed that should be contained and if possible eliminated. The London Daily Mail recently profiled several women who’ve drunk enough of the Kool-Aid that they have had abortions and had themselves sterilized “in the firm belief that (they are) helping to save the planet” by not bringing earth-destroying babies into the world. Said one, “Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at

the expense of the planet. Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.” Speaking of her first husband, she says, “We both passionately wanted to save the planet – not produce a new life which would only add to the problem.” Another had an abortion because “it would have been immoral to give birth to a child that I felt strongly would only be a burden to the world,” and has “never felt a twinge of guilt” over her decision. Another realized that “a baby would pollute the planet – and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do.” A childless couple adds, “We do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child.” While bizarre, these sentiments are simply the logical extension of current environmental thinking that the planet matters more than people do. (Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly | the Daily Mail)