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Friday, March 30, 2007
Linda Chavez :: Townhall.com Columnist
Intolerance in the Twin Cities
by Linda Chavez
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Tolerance is a two-way street, as a group of Somali taxi drivers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., are about to find out. In May, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) in the Twin Cities is set to adopt new rules that will punish cabbies who refuse to haul passengers carrying liquor, even though the drivers claim their Muslim faith forbids them to do so.

The issue has come to a head in the Twin Cities because a popular local imam issued a fatwa last June forbidding Muslim drivers from transporting liquor in their taxis. The prohibition is not widely shared among Muslims elsewhere in the United States, but it has caused quite a stir in Minneapolis and St. Paul, home to the nation's largest Somali community. More than 600 airport taxi drivers in the cities are Somali, most of them Muslim.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, about 100 passengers each month are denied transportation for carrying alcohol. But that will change if the MAC goes forward with a plan to suspend for 30 days the license of any driver who refuses customers for reasons other than safety; a second offense could lead the driver to lose his license for two years.

Some Muslim drivers claim the rules single them out for religious persecution -- and they vow to fight the penalties as an infringement of religious liberty. What the drivers seem to be saying is, we expect non-Muslims to respect our beliefs and practices, but we aren't required to tolerate theirs.

The Somali intolerance doesn't just extend to alcohol. Some drivers have also refused to carry blind passengers with guide dogs, on grounds that the Koran says dog saliva is unclean. And some Muslim store cashiers in the Twin Cities have refused to scan pork products, alleging this also violates their faith.

There is a strong tradition in the United States of granting great deference to religious practices and beliefs, but there is also a tradition of not forcing those beliefs on others who do not share them -- which is where the Somalis have run afoul.

Today, these drivers are objecting to contact with customers who have alcohol, pork or dogs with them; tomorrow it may be refusing to allow women with bare heads in their cabs. Continued...
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About The Author

Linda Chavez is chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics .

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Reply # 76
Date: Apr 2, 2007 - 1:28 AM EST
Subject: Sawgunner
Where in my posting did you see me accuse you of being a bigot? I was purposely very careful to avoid such a statement. My two references to racism and bigotry were as follows.

"If you prefer to only associate with bigots ..."

"To be conservative is not to be a bigot or a racist."

Neither of these references actually accuse you personally of either.

Your metaphor that compares selecting your customer to a woman's approval of a suitor has no relevance. The metaphor fails miserably because the woman is not "open to the public for business." At least let's hope not.

I recognize that we have many laws requiring many things of business owners, most of which I would likely end up agreeing with you about, but this is certainly not one of them.

As for your paragraph requesting that I refrain from assuming that that one that defends an unpopular position must subscribe to that position I can only say that I assumed nothing. It was your prior posting that assumed many things about me including that I wanted government to be able to tell people how to think and mandate individual actions. You also opined that because I did not agree with you that I was then not a conservative.

I do thank you for your last comment and I do believe that we will likely share comments in the future and more than likely we will find ourselves to be on the same side on most.



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Reply # 75
Date: Apr 1, 2007 - 11:02 PM EST
Sorry Ron, but....
But you assume that because I defend the right of people to control who they choose to associate with, then I must be a bigot or a racist, and that I must obviously "promote" such positions. In reality, I simply defend the right of people to be bigots or racists, and that does not obligate me to be one. If I defend the right of someone to be gay, that doesn't mean I have to be gay as well. As such, your attempt to paint me as a racist or a bigot was a poor attempt to discredit my positions, a tactic popular with non-conservatives.

If defending freedom in areas that are unpopular makes me a bad person in the minds of conservatives, then it appears that the left has scored a victory in their campaign of political correctness and mandated acceptance of others. I prefer the concept of free association, and because government has taken to licensing businesses does not mean business owners must sacrifice their rights of association in order to be properly sanctioned by government. That would be akin to having the issuance of a business license hinge on one giving up their right to free speech. These are rights that are fully protected by the Bill of Rights, and our government cannot extort our ability to conduct trade by requiring us to give up such protections.

There is no sense in rehashing the arguments, for it is obvious that you feel business owners are servants of potential customers and must agree to do business with everyone. However, just because it is the "law" that business owners are prohibited from discriminating based on race, sex, etc. doesn't absolve the fact that such mandates erode personal freedoms. I stand by my earlier statement that you need work on the concept of freedom, as do most contemporary Americans. Freedom doesn't mean that one is free to force others to do business / associate with them. Freedom is the right to choose who you want to do business / associate with. If a business owner does not want to sell to me because I am black, then that is no different than having a girl who refuses to date me for the same reason. I do have the right to patronize an establishment that will serve me, and the bigoted business owner will lose income from the loss of my patronage. This may lead to the closure of his business, and his exercise of an unfair practice will be handled by the marketplace.

We can agree to disagree, but kindly refrain from assuming that anyone that defends an unpopular position must automatically subscribe to that position. Such attacks result in a society whereby defenders will eschew supporting unpopular positions, and the will of the majority ends up running roughshod over the minority, ie: democracy. And that is an evil to be avoided.

But I did enjoy the debate. Hope to tangle with you in the future, you are a good opponent.
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