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Icelandair's New Ad Featuring a Gay Couple Proves Not All Airlines Are Out of Touch

Icelandair

United just profiled a gay male couple in the worst way but Icelandair is LGBT-friendly. 

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United Airlines continues to terrorize its passengers in various heinous ways--the latest being that a United employee falsely accused a gay dad of molesting the son he and his husband adopted as he held the sleeping child on a flight. Meanwhile, United could learn something from Icelandair, which recently released its first LGBT-themed ad featuring a middle-aged gay male couple touring the country's sights.

In the new ad, the couple tours Iceland's most recognizable destination spots including the Northern Lights and the gigantic Gullfoss waterfall as any couple on vacation might.

What Iceland lacks in size it makes up for in its acceptance of LGBT people as it boasted the world's first-ever openly gay Prime Minister--Johanna Sigurdardottir, who helped usher in marriage equality there.

In as statement about why the airline chose a gay male couple for its latest ad, Icelandair's brand manager Jon Skafti Kristjansson told Gay Iceland.

"This ad portrays a cultural trip to Iceland and the group it's aimed at is people who travel to enjoy what life has to offer with their loved ones. So it was an obvious choice to use a loving middle-aged couple for such an ad; it's worked well for us in the past. But this time we thought: why not add to the diversity and make this loving, middle-aged couple a same-sex couple?"

Watch the ad below.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.