"This is for family boarding only and you are not permitted to board."

Airline Refused To Let Gay Couple And Their Kids Use Family Boarding

Southwest Airlines has landed in hot water after refusing to allow a man, his husband and their three children to use family boarding on a recent flight.

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Grant Morse and his spouse were scheduled to fly from Buffalo to Fort Lauderdale with their kids this past Saturday. Minutes before boarding was set to begin, they gathered in the designated family boarding area. They were then greeted by a gate agent who told them they needed to leave.

“This is for family boarding only,” Grant Morse said the agent told his husband Sam. He added that the agent “aggressively” told the pair that they couldn’t board as a family, even as the men explained that they were married and that both their names appeared on their children’s birth certificates.

The agent was having none of it and repeated the refrain: “This is only for families.”

After she left, Morse and his husband stood their ground. Moments later, the agent announced over the intercom that they were starting the family boarding process.

Grant Morse

When the men attempted to board the plane, they were blocked once again by the gate agent, who allegedly said, “This is for family boarding only and you are not permitted to board. This is only for family, and I told you that already.”

Once the family was finally allowed to board, they were forced to separate, with their five-year-old sitting between two strangers in a row alone, Morse sitting with the three-year-old twins in the back and his husband alone a few rows ahead of them.

“I felt like I was a criminal and I was humiliated,” Morse told WKBW.

While Southwest said in a statement that the family was denied the special boarding process because they were accompanied by Morse’s 83-year-old mother, Morse believes it was “blatant discrimination” and plans to take legal action against the airline.