Did you know our political correctness runs the risk of undermining our US society?

Question

A minor issue at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) has potentially major implications for the future of Islam in the United States.

Starting about a decade ago, some Muslim taxi drivers serving the airport declared, that they would not transport passengers visibly carrying alcohol, in transparent duty-free shopping bags, for example. This stance stemmed from their understanding of the Koran's ban on alcohol. A driver named Fuad Omar explained: "This is our religion. We could be punished in the afterlife if we agree to [transport alcohol]. This is a Koran issue. This came from heaven." Another driver, Muhamed Mursal, echoed his words: "It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol."

The issue emerged publicly in 2000. On one occasion, 16 drivers in a row refused a passenger with bottles of alcohol. This left the passenger - who had done nothing legally wrong - feeling like a criminal. For their part, the 16 cabbies lost income. As Josh L. Dickey of the Associated Press put it, when drivers at MSP refuse a fare for any reason, "they go to the back of the line. Waaaay back. Past the terminal, down a long service road, and into a sprawling parking lot jammed with cabs in Bloomington, where drivers sit idle for hours, waiting to be called again."

To avoid this predicament, Muslim taxi drivers asked the Metropolitan Airports Commission for permission to refuse passengers carrying liquor - or even suspected of carrying liquor - without being banished to the end of the line. MAC rejected this appeal, worried that drivers might offer religion as an excuse to refuse short-distance passengers.

The number of Muslim drivers has by now increased, to the point that they reportedly make up three-quarters of MSP's 900 cabdrivers. By September 2006, Muslims turned down an estimated three fares a day based on their religious objection to alcohol, an airport spokesman, Patrick Hogan, told the Associated Press, adding that this issue has "slowly grown over the years to the point that it's become a significant customer service issue."

"Travelers often feel surprised and insulted," Mr. Hogan told USA Today.

With this in mind, MAC proposed a pragmatic solution: drivers unwilling to carry alcohol could get a special color light on their car roofs, signaling their views on alcohol to taxi starters and customers alike. From the airport's point of view, this scheme offers a sensible and efficient mechanism to resolve a minor irritant, leaving no passenger insulted and no driver losing business. "Airport authorities are not in the business of interpreting sacred texts or dictating anyone's religious choices," Hogan points out. "Our goal is simply to ensure travelers at [the airport] are well served." Awaiting approval only from the airport's taxi advisory committee, the two-light proposal will likely be in operation by the end of 2006.

But on a societal level, the proposed solution has massive and worrisome implications. Namely, the two-light plan intrudes the Shari‘a, or Islamic law, with state sanction, into a mundane commercial transaction in Minnesota. A government authority thus sanctions a signal as to who does or does not follow Islamic law.

What of taxi drivers beyond those at MSP? Other Muslims in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the country could well demand the same privilege. Bus conductors might follow suit. The whole transport system could be divided between those Islamically observant and those not so.

Why stop with alcohol? Muslim taxi drivers in several countries already balk at allowing seeing-eye dogs in their cars. Future demands could include not transporting women with exposed arms or hair, homosexuals, and unmarried couples. For that matter, they could ban men wearing kippas, as well as Hindus, atheists, bartenders, croupiers, astrologers, bankers, and quarterbacks.

MAC has consulted on the taxi issue with the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society, an organization the Chicago Tribune has established is devoted to turning the United States into a country run be Islamic law. The wife of a former head of the organization, for example, has explained that its goal is "to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state."

It is precisely the innocuous nature of the two-light taxi solution that makes it so insidious - and why the Metropolitan Airports Commission should reconsider its wrong-headed decision.

Answer 1

I agree with the sentiment, but this is not political correctness. If their religious views preclude the performance of their job, then they need to seek a different type of job...not demand that society adhere to restrictions of the services for which the company exsists in the first place.

Answer 2

What in bloody hell makes you think this is only a US situation.

It's happening even in Australia & Europe. One Islamic group has demanded one day a week be set aside at a towns swimming pool just for Islamic women. When that request was refused the Council has been taken to the Anti-discrimination Commission. Outcome is yet to be decided. This group has said that if they lose they will take the matter up with the UN.

Totally Un-Australian behaviour but we now have to cop this stuff because of PC.

Answer 3

People turn in others for things they don't like, and these sites delete their comments. Youtube is famous for it, so is yahoo answers. In Canada, they had a case against Mark Steyn for his book "America Alone" that wrote about birth rates among different groups, and noted that muslims are outproducing others, and for this he's called an islamaphobe, which is a crime in Canada. Go figure.

Answer 4

I absolutely agree they're wrong--that just opens the door to all kinds of discrimination, and it's not the kind of thing I want spreading across America.

I also hope that people opposed to this are also willing to protest Christian doctors who don't want to give lesbians fertility or other treatments, Christian pharmacists who don't want to dispense birth control, etc.

It's time for some people to learn the lesson most of us got when we were five--not everything goes your own way.

Answer 5

I'm a bit confused about this entire issue. If a Christian tried something like that, (for instance, a Christian cabbie refuses to drive a woman to an abortion clinic?), they'd get fired.
Where I live, a home nurse did, indeed, lose her job some years back, because she refused to buy cigarettes for her home-bound patient, based on her Christian values. She believes that it is against her religion.
These cabbies who refuse to take a fare because they have alcohol ought to lose their jobs.
Where the hell is the ACLU when you need them????????

Answer 6

They should just pull their hack licenses or send them to the back of the line, just like a white guy who refuses to carry blacks. If they can't transport alcohol, they can't be in the transportation business. They can't get a job at a strip club and expect the women to keep their clothes on.

Answer 7

"...turning the United States into an country run by Islamic Law"?

Hah, Christianity beat them to it, unfortunately...

Answer 8

And how is this different from Christian pharmacists who won't dispense birth control pills?

Answer 9

I totally agree with you.

Answer 10

REALLY, you think being politically correct is THE most important thing wrong with the US right now? NOT the crap that's spewing from the GOP? WOW...