But the Muslim flight attendant did not ask to be allowed not to serve customers with service dogs. And Muslims cabbies who didn’t want to carry service dogs were denied that accommodation. So what is the relevance of the comment?
People who get a religious accommodation are granted that specific accommodation. They aren’t given carte blanche to ignore any laws, regulations or job requirements they think infringe upon their religion’s requirements. The Muslim flight attendant was allowed not to serve alcohol, but she didn’t get a pass on serving customers with service animals.
In general I agree with the comment on accomodating religious rules. I don’t see why someone whose Sabbath is Saturday should get preferential treatment over someone whose softball league plays every Saturday, for example. One person who was asked to work Saturday would get the day off, the other might be fired.
Re #80- But just like the alcohol accomodation, if the Muslim FA objected to touching or being around the dog, the airline would have to try and accomodate that also.
This is an awkward situation because the flight attendent converted to Islam after she was already employed, and then after converting learned that her religion prohibits her from serving alcohol (Can I get a LOL?). Would an airline be required to hire a person who mentioned during an interview that they cannot serve alcolhol due to religious belief? It would be a lot easier if they did not hire such a person. On the one hand it reminds me of a restaurant waitress who is under 21 and cannot serve me a drink, so someone else delivers the beer. On the other hand, it is an airplane and it could become a PIA for all concerned, passengers and other flight attendents.
I am wondering just how much of an inconvenience it would be having one flight attendant not serve drinks. On a crowded flight it could cause real delays in the beverage service. Unless she can take the payment and just not actually hand the drink to the passenger. In that case she would still be working the trolley with the other attendant but just would not be the one to handle the alcohol once it was ready to be served.
If she is going to object to working a trolley that has alcohol then that would be problematic. She cannot perform a basic function of her job.
Not necessarily. They only have to offer “reasonable” accommodations. Probably it wouldn’t be considered a reasonable accommodation for her not to be on flights with passengers with service animals.
TatinG, you and I are in agreement about the badness of these Religious Freedom Restoration laws, that force accommodations for religious scruples. Not only do I think the laws are bad laws, but I also think they are unconstitutional, because they are privileging religious objections over other objections that are equally strongly held.
However, you and I are not on the Supreme Court, so we can’t get rid of the objectionable laws. So we have to look at what the state of the law is as it stands. And the law is not as bad as you paint it. Religious scruples have to be accommodated, but only when the accommodation is not very burdensome. It would be difficult for an airline to suddenly have to reassign flight attendants when a passenger showed up with a service animal, so it’s dubious that any court would require that accommodation.
I remember seeing an episode of Chopped where one chef was Hindu and vegetarian but needed to cook meat. He cooked meat and said, “tasting is not the same as eating”. More people need that kind of flexible thinking! In another episode, a vegan chef nearly dropped out because honey was one of the ingredients.
“Re #80- But just like the alcohol accomodation, if the Muslim FA objected to touching or being around the dog, the airline would have to try and accomodate that also.”
I agree with Cardinal Fang, that this would be unlikely. ADA alone guarantees access with service dogs to things like transportation and in places like restaurants and stores, and that right of the person to have their service animal would overwrite the person’s objections to dogs.
“And the law is not as bad as you paint it. Religious scruples have to be accommodated, but only when the accommodation is not very burdensome.”
That is the way the federal law was written, but there is a caveat to that that worries people. In another Scotus decision, if I remember the ruling correctly, the majority ruling put a much higher level of burden upon ‘reasonable accommodation’ on the institution , that the standard for being a burden is much, much higher than the old reasonable accommodation standard courts applied.For example, Kim Davis could argue that if her office wouldn’t issue marriage licenses because of her beliefs, that is reasonable because couples under Kentucky law could go to any county office that was willing to issue it, they didn’t need to go locally, and it would be up to those wanting her to issue those certificates to show how accomodating this would be a major burden on those seeking licenses. Judge Bunning obviously doesn’t agree, but in theory the SCOTUS ruling could cover this (I doubt it, Kennedy was the 5th on that decision more than likely, and I doubt he would agree in this case, but the precedent is there). There are a lot of people out there who feel that religious belief comes above other rights (most idiotically, because it is in the first amendment, therefore was meant to be above others oye) and outweighs everything else, and SCOTUS seemed to agree (it may be part of the Hobby Lobby decision, not sure). Quite honestly, the burden in such a case should be on the plaintiff to show that accommodating their belief is not a burden rather than the employer proving that it is a burden (or the office/institution, etc).
“And for a person of her convictions, she’s correct.”
I disagree with this interpretation that Kim is no longer in a state of sin. She’s currently living with the fourth husband. Jesus told the woman at the well that her fifth husband was no husband at all. So unless Davis’s first husband (the only one that counts) is dead, she is living in open and ongoing adultery. Being saved erases the earlier sins, but it does not mean you can just do whatever you want in the future. And this commentary on the nullity of a subsequent marriage comes directly from Jesus (unlike Paul’s commentary about men lying with men). She’s a raging hypocrite.
Apparently, some Kim Davis supporters are likening her to Rosa Parks, claiming that she, like Parks, is being “persecuted” for exercising a fundamental civil right. 8-| I can even begin to tell you how insulting I find that analogy to be. LakeWashington is right. She’s more like the Bull Connor or George Wallace of civil rights. That the oppressor can claim to be the oppressed with a straight face makes me hopping mad. I hope she rots on jail.
85 points out something that's IMO important in this discussion—it all goes beyond religious accommodations. Religious accommodations are an extra-huge deal in this because of the various religious freedom **restoration** laws out there and their associated mandated accommodations, but there are other deeply held belief sets that ought to be discussed in terms of what's reasonable to accommodate, I think.
The real gist of this is what is reasonable? The law uses reasonable man statutes, where if it can be demonstrated that the accommodation doesn’t affect the workings of the institution or office, that it is okay to ask for it, but what religious lobby groups are arguing is that it be up to the institution to show that such an accommodation would be so draconian, that it shouldn’t be allowed, it is a totally different tone and basically makes it orders of magnitude harder to not deny such accommodations. In Kim Davis case, as I noted in another post, it might mean saying telling a same sex couple they can travel to another county where the office allows same sex marriage license, since doing so ‘is not draconian’ since they can get one (course, puts a burden on the same sex couple, and worse, it sets a precedent where mysteriously a lot more offices say “we don’t have to do it, since they can go elsewhere” until suddenly it is like a black person having to travel many miles to find a restaurant or or hotel that would accommodate them.
Kim Davis is basically setting herself up to be a martyr, and what the religious liberty group is looking for is accommodations that are so broad, that are so porous, that people can get away with all kinds of discrimination based on ‘religious belief’, it would be like allowing Jim Crow laws and claiming religious belief, it is nothing more than a stalking horse for very, very broad based discrimination.
The original intent of the law was supposed to accommodate where basic religious practices and such were challenged, like Native Americans using Peyote in rituals, or a sikh wearing a turban or a muslim the head scarf or a Jew a Yalmuke, it was not intended to allow the use of belief to basically allow for discrimination based on religious belief in a societal context, but that is what is being tried here.
Exactly, musicprnt! Of course history will show this woman to be precisely the kind of knuckle dragging throw-back it’s shown men like Strom Thurmond and Bull Conner to have been. She was, unfortunately, released from jail today to a cheering crowd and the theme from Rocky playing in the background. Good thing her most high profile political supporter probably realizes he hasn’t an iceberg’s chance in hell of getting elected President… 8-|
[quote]
In a signal of the possible courtroom battles to come, Ms. Davis’s lawyers have said those licenses are void because she did not authorize them. The Rowan County attorney and the state attorney general have said they are valid.
^^ #94: And that’s the thing here—many of her supporters are portraying her release as some huge vindication and victory, but it’s really more the judge playing out just enough rope…
Who exactly are her supporters? That is a serious question. An elected democrat taking this particular stand is a new one on me. Of course, I’m a member of the religious right and have seen very little support for her, except for Mike Huckabee, who is himself a bizarre hybrid of big government Christianity.
Whoever her supporters are, they certainly are a vocal bunch. I’m perfectly supportive of a person’s right to believe whatever they want (Kim Davis’ included), but the right to their beliefs absolutely stops at the point where it impinges upon others’ Constitutionally guaranteed rights. Huckabee’s supporters overlap with Davis’ apparently, but look where he stands in the polls…
And there we have the issue distilled to its very essence.
ETA: I am particularly confused as to why Ted Cruz is supporting her. He’s a Harvard-trained lawyer. Legally, he must damn well know that she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.