Airport employee sacked for intercom homophobia
A Florida airport employee got the axe Monday for playing an anti-gay message on a terminal intercom, offending a travelling gay couple.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinal reports that Broward County officials said Jefhro Monestime, an employee at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport, admitted to playing the offensive verse through the intercom last week as a joke.
The verse from Leviticus 20:13 was broadcast last Tuesday throughout the airport.
It reads: “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death.”
Anthony Niedwiecki and Waymon Hudson, a gay couple from Oakland Park, had just arrived on their United Airlines flight from Chicago.
Niedwiecki and Hudson told the Palm Beach Post that they felt threatened by the message.
“It was dark. There was hardly anybody around,” said Niedwiecki to the Post.
“This was the last thing we wanted to hear at the airport.”
Monestime’s employer, Superior Aircraft Services, fired him after he confessed.
“This action in no way reflects the views of Superior, its owners nor its employees,” the company said in a statement.
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