Corporations have for so long now touted the politically-correct agendas of "inclusion" and "embracing diversity." Ironic then that one corporation might be hoisted on its own petard for these very issues. 

Air France will now have to assess whether the financial benefits of reopening its route to Iran outweigh the rights and safety of its own employees -- particularly women and members of the LGBT community. In the process, Air France's ultimate decision will also represent a moral stand, or lack thereof. 

Gay flight attendants with the air carrier are rightfully worried about being forced to work the newly opened route to Tehran and have asked their employer to please not "fly them to their death."

Women employees have already successfully petitioned the airline to opt out of flying the route after they were instructed to wear headscarves and wide-leg trousers while flying to Iran and spending time in the country. Gay flight attendants want the same opt-out, and no one could blame them one bit. The International Business Times reports: 

Gay air stewards from Air France are demanding the right to refuse to fly to Iran when the airline begins operating the route again because homosexuality is punishable by death in the country.

The carrier is set to resume flights to the Islamic Republic on 17 April, after an eight-year hiatus, but gay cabin crew want the right to opt out of the route.

The gay stewards' online petition follows a row that erupted after new rules were introduced on the French carrier stating that women must cover their hair during trips to Iran.

After a backlash, Air France agreed that women could refuse to fly the route, and in a petition on change.org entitled "We don't want to fly to death in Iran" gay stewards want the same choice.

The petition, started by Laurent M, reads: 

"Air France has decided to return to Tehran. Before taking this decision, it did not ask flight attendants what they thought of the rights of women in this country, nor how they felt at the thought of having to wear scarves and wide trousers once at the destination.

"Fortunately, the unions intervened, the feminist cause is often seen, the media seized the debate, and the hostesses got (which would have seemed logical from the start) the right to refuse travel.

"It is this right that we ask today for gay stewards. Indeed, homosexuality remains illegal in this country. The penalty is up to 74 lashes for a minor, up to the death penalty for an adult (the method of execution remains at the discretion of the judge).

"Of course, sexuality is not written on passports and does not change the way the crew work. But for moral reasons as humans, it is inconceivable to force someone to go to a country where his kind are condemned for who they are.

"It is also ethically inconceivable to ask the people who fought in their country, in their environment or even in their family to be recognised for who they are to put a scarf over who they are, for their profession."

Very well put. The Left's hypocrisy is truly breathtaking. While everyone is up in arms over the "right" to implement gender neutral bathrooms in North Carolina and are using the State as the poster child for anti-LGBT bigotry, little attention is being paid to the fact that women and members of the LGBT community who work in the airline industry are expected to fly to their potential imprisonment or death in Islamic lands. 

In fact, consider all of the hypocritical, fake-sanctimonious boycotts the Left engages in. There's the BDS movement that pushes companies, academic institutions, artists and private citizens to boycott Israel (the only LGBT-friendly nation in the entire region) over bald-faced lies about the country's "human rights abuses." Or, several years ago, remember when activists called for a boycott of the fast-food chain Chick-Fil-A over its founder's views on gay marriage? The list goes on.

The Left spends an inordinate amount of time targeting, vilifying and boycotting what it deems politically advantageous, but when a real boycott is needed, it's nowhere to be found.  Liberals are always very concerned with the rights of minorities... in the West. For some reason, however, those same concerns never seem to extend to the treatment of minorities in Islamic lands, which is where those very minorities need the most protection.