Dishonest, despicable criticism of Alaska Air

Conservative news and opinion site The Daily Caller is taking issue with Alaska Airlines for embracing their LGBTQ customer base – and they’re doing it in such a dishonest way that it leaves me wondering if the writer simply just doesn’t like gay people.

One of the goals of the Jason Rantz Show is to help you become a better consumer of news and it requires one simple task: fact check everything. Everything you read, hear, see – including anything I write on this blog or say on my show. When you start fact checking things you start to realize which sources you can trust and which you cannot.

When you fact check the provocatively titled “Alaska Air Offers Exciting Airfare Discounts For Gay People”, it becomes clear it’s an article meant to appeal to your inner bigot. They want people who don’t like gays to click on this article and be outraged by gay people who are getting special treatment by way of discounts.

Eric Owens writes sarcastically:

Are you gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender? Do you want to travel to a bunch of gay pride festivals throughout the United States? If you answered yes to these questions, Alaska Airlines is currently offering exciting discounts on air travel for you.

Now, you should know right off the bat that no company is going to give just gay people a discount. How would you prove someone is gay based on an online booking of a flight? If the customer calls the customer service line to book a flight, are they subjected to a series of stereotypical questions to test your homosexuality?

Of course not.

But he continues:

Gay travelers can enjoy discounts of fully 10 percent for airfare to a handful of destinations hosting gay and lesbian celebrations. These gay vacation hotspots include Portland (Northwest Pride, June 13-14), Seattle (Seattle Pride, June 27-28) and San Diego (San Diego Pride, July 17-20).

Alaska Air is offering discounts of seven percent to about two dozen other exciting destinations including Oakland (Gay Wine Weekend, June 19-21), New Orleans (Southern Decadence, Sept 2-7) and Orlando (Gay Days at Walt Disney World – going on right now).

So in other words, they’re giving you cheaper access to destinations where there are gay pride events – it is, after all, Pride Month. But you don’t have to be gay to enjoy the discounts. You can simply travel to Portland during June 13-14 and get the discount regardless of whether or not you go to Gay Pride. (Tip: go here and find out if the dates match up with any travel you might be interested in so you can enjoy the discount.)

And even in the article titled “Alaska Air Offers Exciting Airfare Discounts For Gay People” Eric Owens writes, “Being gay is not a requirement for purchasing airfare to these exciting gay pride parade and gay cruise destinations on the weekends when the events occur.”

So let me get this straight: Alaska Air offers discounts to gay people but you’re not required to be gay to get the discount? So in other words, anyone can get the discount? It seems like the author simply doesn’t like that Alaska Air is catering towards their gay customers; indeed, he seems upset that Alaska Air has a landing page featuring photos of gay people:

One image on the page feature a trio of shirtless dudes standing under some palm trees. Another shows two women nearly embracing while drinking coffee. A third shows a couple of happy men wearing snazzy denim and holding fancy glasses of alcohol.

The shirtless dudes are at a beach, the two women are not “nearly embracing”, and the “fancy” alcohol appears to be champagne. This is a critique based solely on the gay clientele.

If Alaska Air did something similar, giving discounts to destinations around big Christian conventions, like Creation NorthWest Festival (a huge Christian music festival in Tri Cities from July 30-Aug 2), and a progressive propaganda site like Think Progress attacked Alaska Air, something tells me the folks over at The Daily Caller would come out and say that’s anti-Christian bigotry. They’d be right: going after a company simply for catering to Christian customers is bigoted; the same way it’s bigoted going after Alaska Air for catering to their LGBT customers.

Why is it bad that Alaska Air is trying to appeal to an under-served demographic with higher disposable income than straight people? It’s a smart business decision. And it’s hardly discriminatory, which is the underlying theme to the criticism.

Above all, and maybe what bothers me even more, is that Owens could have been critical of Alaska Air without having to lie in his article title. He chose to lie to his readers; not very respectful of the audience he caters to, is it?