At first, I thought this was a joke. Apparently not.
It does appear, however, to be an isolated incident. But I am forced to ask…if your religion forbids you from doing a certain thing, why would you put yourself in a situation where you might have to do that thing?
I feel the same way about pharmacists who will not fill prescriptions for birth control or the morning after pill.
Exactly. If your religious beliefs are going to interfere with your job, get another job.
If I remember right, there have also been reports of Muslim cabbies refusing to pick up passengers who’ve been drinking or passengers with dogs. This is getting ridiculous. Why take a service job if you have those restrictions on who you’ll serve?
It depends on what the thing is. I’m not comfortable with the idea of ordering pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill or take another job --although I’m not sure that that’s an unreasonable stance for someone else to take(especially the employer of said phramacist).
But if you are a cashier, and you are Muslim and you don’t want to ring up bacon, find a store to cashier at that doesn’t sell bacon. Please.
I don’t understand what distinction you are making. If it’s fair to require Muslims to fulfill their job duties, why not Catholics?
Customer refuses to shop at store where clerk let’s his religous beliefs get in the way of fulfilling his job requirements
**Store loses business, owner fires clerk for not fulfilling his job requrements, **
Problem solved.
Muslim Cab Drivers Refuse to Transport Alcohol, and Dogs
I think this was already discussed on the SDMB. Not sure if it’s been blown out of proportion. But, some quotes from the article are a little bit troubling.
In reading my previous post I don’t think I made my position clear.
I completely agree that those that do not want to provide a legal service be them Catholics or Muslims or Hobbits need to either make accommodations within their faith or find other employment.
Guide dogs?
The difference with cabbies are that they are usually independant contractors. They rent their cab and get paid if they take a fare. If they sit around at the airport all day refusing fares, they don’t cover their cab rent. That’s their business.
A cashier or a pharmacist (unless they own the store) is costing their employer revenue (or at the very least inconvience for the customers of the store - which probably results in lost revenue). That’s the business of the store owner.
I see no difference between not selling birth control pills and refusing to ring up pork. In some ways, I think the case is better for pork - strict interpretation is that they can’t touch it or sell it - they aren’t judging me for buying it, they simply can’t touch it (work at the Gap, they don’t sell pork products). Whereas with BC pills or the morning after pill, they are applying their moral code to you - i.e. there is no Christian Law that says “thou shall not touch birth controll pills.” I suppose they could say that by being involved in the transaction, they are party to the murder they believe is happening, but then Christians should be fleeing all sorts of behavior that could make them accessories to “murder” - like not working in sporting goods stores where bullets are sold.
By the way, hate this part from the article:
You know, anytime I have to wait for anything to happen outside normal when I’m in line at Target, I’m being inconvineced. If it takes two minutes to call another cashier over to ring through the bacon, that’s two minutes of my life. Bullshit, I’m leaving my full cart right there are walking out of the store. You can’t judge whether I’ve run in and am running late to get the kids to piano practice or if I have all the time in the world to stand there so you can meet your religious obligations.
It probably isn’t a HUGE inconvience, its a few minutes from my life. But to say I’m not inconvienced at all - that’s not being at all respectful of my time.
I don’t see how you could draw a distinction between the two scenarios. Can you elaborate?
I do find the situation a little odd (since the Muslim cashier almost certainly never touches the bacon itself given that it’s presumably in a plastic package), but it’s a major exaggeration to compare it to the pharmacist not dispensing morning after pills. If you read the article you’ll see that the cashier didn’t prevent the customer from purchasing the bacon; she just had the customer scan and bag it. If a pharmacist refuses to fill an Rx for morning after pills the customer can’t do it herself.
I am guessing because theoretically, any pharmacy could be called upon to dispense those drugs. Standing outside any pharmacy in Anytown, USA, it’s reasonable to think that Birth Control Pills would be sold inside. But no one goes to a flower shop or a clothing store to buy bacon. The set of skills required to work in those places is roughly the same as that required to be a grocery store cashier, so the employees have lots of options as to where they can be gainfully employed, a multitude of which have no possibility of violating their religious beliefs.
Some clerks won’t even engage in the transaction of selling a pork product.
http://wcco.com/local/local_story_076144841.html
Cashiers need to sell legitimately marketed products. Pharmacists need to fill legitimate prescriptions.
I’ve got no issue (well, I’ve got some issue, but not a lot) with someone saying, “Hey, I’m not supposed to touch this. Can you scan it and bag it?” That’s very different from, “Hey, I’m not supposed to touch this, so you can’t buy it. Next!”
Well, then can they just let you walk out with it? Everyone wins with free bacon.
I’ve never encountered this particular problem, but when I was younger, we had a bellman at our Holiday Inn who was in every other way a good worker — except that he refused, on account of his religion, to give cigarettes to guests. We pleaded with him and gave him fair warning, but eventually had to fire him.
Ok, color me clueless, but can someone explain what the issue was with cabbies and dogs? I’ve never heard of anything like that.