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10-18-2006, 02:09 PM
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| | Re Cultures Clash In Cabs | |
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And for every useless reason I know
There's a reason not to care
If I hide myself wherever I go
Am I ever really there? |
10-18-2006, 02:24 PM
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| | Re Cultures Clash In Cabs | |
Next up. An Amish person gets a bus driver's job and then refuses to drive the bus because it's against his religion. |
10-18-2006, 03:11 PM
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MJ
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
10-20-2006, 11:21 AM
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| | Re Cultures Clash In Cabs | |
There's a little thing called "public accommodation" in the law. In this case, the cabbies don't have a right to drive taxis, and it's questionable whether they have a right to refuse to carry certain passengers based on their own private religious beliefs.
I don't have a lot of patience with this sort of thing, and my response would be the same as it was to those pharmacists who don't want to dispense birth control medication because of their religious beliefs -- get out of the profession, since you can't perform adequately. |
10-20-2006, 12:08 PM
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| | Re Cultures Clash In Cabs | |
Pharmacists who started in their profession before RU-486 or the morning after pill, started, believing that they could perform all the duties of their profession with no intrusion into their religious beliefs. Then along come these new drugs.
They should be accomodated. They started into the profession in good faith (no pun intended) and should be permitted to continue. With someone who started and graduated pharmacy college since the advent of these drugs, then they knew exactly what would be required of them on the job.
Taxi drivers and bus drivers don't have years of education on the line for one thing. Pharmacists have years in pharmacy school which they would have to give up. For another, bus and taxi drivers started the job knowing they would sometimes be driving buses with ads (some of which may offend them) or carrying passengers who might be carrying liquor.
They should not be accomodated.
If a pharmacist or anyone else 'gets religion' a religious belief incompatible with their occupation AFTER starting in the profession, then they should not be accomodated. They also knew what these new religious beliefs would mean occupation-wise and chose to adopt them anyway.  |
10-20-2006, 12:12 PM
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Small-mindedness is okay as long as there's a grandfather clause. |
10-20-2006, 12:18 PM
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So now sincerely held religious beliefs are small minded? How tolerant of you. |
10-20-2006, 12:26 PM
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| | Re Cultures Clash In Cabs | |
Would dimwittedness be better? Selfishness? It's so hard to find the right word sometimes.
Hey, if folks here in Mpls can find wording that can survive a legal challenge for a law requiring the cabbies to carry alcohol, go for it. |
10-20-2006, 01:09 PM
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Sincerely held religious beliefs are dimwitted and selfish?
And I thought the left was on the side of tolerance of everyone?
Its reallly just that the right is supposed to be tolerant of those that the left likes, but the left doesn't have to tolerate those on the right.
Tolerate me, but I won't tolerate you. |
10-20-2006, 01:25 PM
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Making others subject to one's sincerely held religious beliefs is dimwitted and selfish, yes. |
10-20-2006, 01:39 PM
|  | Mom of the Four Men | | Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Canada, sort of
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| | Re Cultures Clash In Cabs | |
Ok, everyone hold on to the table, or fasten your seatbelts, or something, because I am with Erik on this one! Bob too- exactly what I think. |
10-20-2006, 02:03 PM
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Quote: realtraveller said
 Sincerely held religious beliefs are dimwitted and selfish?
And I thought the left was on the side of tolerance of everyone?
Its reallly just that the right is supposed to be tolerant of those that the left likes, but the left doesn't have to tolerate those on the right.
Tolerate me, but I won't tolerate you. | Kathy, I don't see how you can separate the "sincerely held religious beliefs" of the pharmacist from the cab drivers. Are you saying the cab drivers beliefs are not sincere?
I don't think you can make the argument about "tolerate me, but I won't tolerate you" when that is in fact what you are doing re: pharmacists vs. cab drivers.
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10-20-2006, 04:00 PM
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| | Re Cultures Clash In Cabs | |
The tolerance remarks were directed at Erik tweaking the leftist rhetoric that Americans must tolerate everyone. I don't believe in tolerating everyone or everything.
My thoughts on the differences between the pharmacists and the cabbies are addressed in my longer post #85. |
10-20-2006, 04:08 PM
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Quote: |
Erik tweaking the leftist rhetoric that Americans must tolerate everyone.
| Huh? |
10-20-2006, 04:11 PM
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My problem is not with what you deem acceptable to be tolerant towards, but rather, the "sincerely held relgious beliefs"
It could be these taxi drivers just suddenly got sick and tired of bending their religious tenets. I'm not saying I should be forced to dump my alcohol if I'm getting into their cab, and I'm most definitely saying they should mark on their cab whether or not they disallow alcohol so I can call or take another cab. And I don't want to hear them whine about how they are being discriminated against because they are muslim rather than acknowledge that people don't want to take a chance on not getting a ride should they have a contraband item.
However, dietary concerns and the rather true fact that alcohol has proven historically to be a destructive factor in many ways (specifically the introduction of alcohol to Native Americans) should not be considered anything less than a sincere religious belief.
I don't have a problem with pharmacists refusing to dispense the morning after pill... so long as they don't have a problem with me not going to their pharmacy.
I have no doubt that the religious belief of that pharmacist and the cab driver are equally sincere.
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''Resolve not to let the defeat of your favorite candidate shatter your faith in America or turn you away from politics. There will be another day. Remember the Red Sox.''
David Broder |
10-20-2006, 04:25 PM
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I'm making no judgement on whether they are sincerely held religious beliefs or not. It doesn't matter to me. If the terms of the employment of driving a cab were known when they took the job, and that required not discriminating against blind people and their dogs or people carrying liquor, then they should be fired. If the pharmacist knew he/she would have to dispense the morning after pill or RU-486 when they went to pharmacy college, they should dispense it. It was a known part of the job. However, if someone has been working at a pharmacy for 20 years, years before these meds came on market and has always been against abortifacients, then that person should be accomodated in his/her religious beliefs. They didn't take a job knowing they wouldn't be able to carry out all the duties.
As for the 'tolerance' banter, I was jesting, tweaking Erik. Liberals always get on a high horse about tolerance. Tolerance of anything and everything. Except when they don't like it. That's all.
Last edited by realtraveller; 10-20-2006 at 04:32 PM.
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10-20-2006, 04:31 PM
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Quote: |
I don't have a problem with pharmacists refusing to dispense the morning after pill... so long as they don't have a problem with me not going to their pharmacy.
| In a big city, not a problem. In Podunksville, that might not be an option. Quote: |
Tolerance of anything and everything
| Bullshit, pure and simple. That may be a common delusion on the right. That doesn't make it true. |
10-20-2006, 04:47 PM
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Quote: |
if someone has been working at a pharmacy for 20 years, years before these meds came on market
| If someone has been working at a pharmacy for 20 years, there are tens of thousands of drugs that have come on the market since he started working. It would be absurd to say that he could refuse to prescribe any or all of them, simply because they came on the market after the date that he got his pharmacy license.
The pharmacist's obligation should be to prescribe all drugs for which patients have a legitimate perscription. It's not to prescribe only drugs that have been on the market for more than 20 years, and then, if he happens to feel like it, to prescribe newer drugs as well (which would actually include the vast majority of drugs that are being used today).
Besides, the whole notion is quite fanciful, because I'm sure that pharamcists, like other licensed professionals, have to renew their licences every year or so, at which point they are recommitting to uphold the obligations of the profession as they exist in the present (not as they existed 20 years ago). |
10-20-2006, 04:57 PM
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It's not the length of time, it's the type of meds. 20 years ago, there weren't any abortifacient drugs on the market.
And I would treat the pharmacist differently than the cab driver because of the educational investment the pharmacist has made. He's not just chucking an unskilled type job, he's losing a profession he spent years training for.
As for newly minted pharmacy graduates, yes, they should dispense everything. They knew what the job would entail when they started. |
10-20-2006, 05:01 PM
| | In Spanish, I'm Marijuana | | Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Lawn-Guy-Land, NY
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Quote: AuntieEmma said
Besides, the whole notion is quite fanciful, because I'm sure that pharamcists, like other licensed professionals, have to renew their licences every year or so, at which point they are recommitting to uphold the obligations of the profession as they exist in the present (not as they existed 20 years ago). | Good point. As of 2005(?) all us social workers in NYS had to take child abuse and maltreatment identification training to renew our licenses, whether or not we work with chidlren, plan to work with children, or even do any clinical work at all to begin with.
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MJ
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
10-20-2006, 05:53 PM
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Quote: realtraveller said
And I would treat the pharmacist differently than the cab driver because of the educational investment the pharmacist has made. | If you're rich and have a few letters after your name (Pharm.D.? MD? JD? MBA? BA? Where exactly to draw the line?), it's okay to impose your views on others but if you're poor and don't have magic letters after your name, tough. |
10-20-2006, 06:37 PM
| | Mom of the Four Men | | Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Canada, sort of
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The argument gets lost on points with that, Kathy. Either it's ok to work based on a religious belief or it isn't, and has nothing to do with level of education. It's the job we're discussing, not the qualifications for that job. Either a person who's hired to do a job does it, or he doesn't. At that point, you have to decide whether to make allowances for everyone's religious beliefs, or for nobody's. Since I think that separation of church and state is really important, even essential for our country, I think the cab drivers, pharmacists, and anyone else who has strong relgious beliefs have to decide based on their conscience, and then act on it, with all attendant consequences. |
10-20-2006, 06:56 PM
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The law requires employers to make reasonable accomodations for religious beliefs on the job. What is reasonable?
It might be reasonable to permit a desk worker to take time out for prayer 5 times a day.
It would be quite unreasonable to permit a surgeon to stop everything and hit the prayer rug.
It might be reasonable to permit someone to have Saturdays off, but unreasonable if Saturday is one of only three days that the store is open.
It was perfectly reasonable for the British school to fire the Muslim teacher who wore a face veil that covered her mouth. The children were hindered in their lessons since part of understanding speech involves some unconscious lip reading. It would have been unreasonable to fire a Muslim teacher just because she wore a head scarf and her face was fully visible.
It's all about reasonableness.
I just think it's unreasonable to force people out of an entire career because new drugs are available that run counter to their beliefs, especially if reasonable accomodations could be made. It's not as though they can specialize in something else and remove themselves from those meds, the way a doctor can remove himself from abortion cases and practice some other form of medicine. Or the way a lawyer could refuse to handle a death penalty case. They can go into another aspect of law. The general pharmacist is out on the street, shut out of his profession entirely.
If a person in MN carrying liquor could get another cab in a matter of minutes, then it would be unreasonable to fire the Muslim cabby who refused to carry him. But if 75% of the cabbies refuse to carry liquor and the passengers are waiting out in the cold for a long time, then that's unreasonable and different rules for airport cabs would have to be made.
And yes, it is a matter of education. It doesn't take a m | |
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