AlexEvans

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This follows another recent story.

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Obviously these cases are quite different in their severity, but they both ask how far religious freedoms go. In both cases, the drivers voluntarily became cab-drivers.

What rights should employers and potential passengers have?

sum1

Refusing the passenger with a guide dog is ablist, discriminating against the disabled. The cab driver should have been fired.

Maybe if the passenger's booze was inside them, if they were drunk, I could see refusing them. But otherwise it's just forcing one's own religious rules on other people. Cab drivers who do that shouldn't be employed.

AlexEvans

That makes sense to me, Sum1.

Apparently the problem is even more widespread. Here's a news story from Australia.

Unbelievable.

Papri

I personally think it depends on whether they're employed by a company or self employed. If it's your own business, surely you have the right to refuse service? Plently of places have that, restaurants for a start who have the right to refuse service at their own discretion. In this case I'd say if the taxi driver didn't want to drive the woman with the alcohol, then fair enough. It was what she was carrying that he objected to, not her. I'm a bit curious as to how they all knew what she was carrying though? Did she have to declare it all, or am I missing something?

However, I think the issue with the guide dog is very different - as a Muslim I wouldnt want a taxi driver refusing me service because of a headscarf, or someone with a walking stick to be refused service, so the same applies for the blind/disabled etc too.

chicah

About the guide dogs - that's bad. Very bad. With the alcohol - I see how people react, but as Papri said, in other service industries you are allowed to deny to serve certain people. There was a restaurant I was at once (in Greece) with a very nice waiter - until he found out we were Norwegians, then he refused to serve us. Because he was Israeli and he thought the Norwegians had ruined everything with their Oslo deal. I actually got kind of sad, I didn't care that he was Israeli, but he obviously held a grudge towards any Norwegian because of this deal. But he still had the right to do this. My point is that if he was allowed to do this, then cab drivers should be allowed to deny passengers. I mean, they could just go into another taxi. Just like we got another waiter.

Avatar

It is not the same thing - by not carrying a guide dog you are basically refusing service to the blind or visually impaired, and that's discriminatory towards them. However, not carrying someone whose carrying alcohol is different as it is not discriminatory towards any group - to me, it's rather similar to the "no shoes, no shirt, no service" rules of restaurants; as long as it is not discriminatory, then you have the right to refuse somone service.

elisheva

Both, I think, are not okay. A cab driver certainly has the right to refuse rowdy passengers, or passengers he would not feel safe with. But for what you're carrying in your bags? I think sum1 is right about this - it's forcing your religion on others, in a sense, or kind of not allowing the possibility of anything outside your religious rules...not sure how to phrase it. Imagine how we'd all react if an evangelical Christian cab driver refused a gay passenger (or a passenger he thought was gay) - it's against his religion, so wouldn't he also have the right to refuse that passenger? But that would spark a tremendous uproar.

In some sense I can even understand the example of the guide dog more than the other - guide dogs are incredibly necessary, and refusing a passenger who needs one is discrimination - but there are cultural codes that are very different from Western cultural codes when it comes to animals and pets. My father is very old-school traditional and also believes that dogs, etc are "unclean" animals, in a sense: my best friend cannot bring her (large and rambunctious, not sure if that makes a difference) dog inside our house if she passes by while walking the dog. So I can see how someone who adheres to that idea would feel very uncomfortable having a dog in an enclosed space. I don't think it justifies discrimination against the blind, though (or anyone who requires an aid dog for any reason, since it's grown beyond the blind).

So, I can see how the dog in a sense "harms" the cab driver - but how is the cab driver being harmed at all by driving a passenger with wine in her suitcase?

Papri

It depends how you perceive alcohol and I don't see that's wrong at all. Some cab drivers might be fine with a passenger with a joint in his pocket or something, others may not. It depends how serious they see it, or not. Some cab drivers mind or don't mind smokers. I think the cab drivers are perfectly entitled not to carry alcohol if they don't want to. It's not neccessarily her "right" to a cab, anymore than people have a "right" to service in a restaurant. Not saying it's good manners, but....

ETA - Also the thing about the gay passenger isn't really comparable, as that would be discriminating against the actual passenger for what his personal preferences are. This is different, as they don't object to her drinking alcohol in her own time, they just don't want it in THEIR car.

sum1

If the objection was to the passenger drinking the alcohol in the cab or being drunk then there'd be some reason to the objection. But when it's just something the person is carrying there's no reason to the objection other than forcing one's religion on other people.

Papri

I don't think it is. For some people they see that the sale or or handling/transporting of alcohol as prohibited (just look at the many Asian Muslim restaurants that have a no-alcohol policy). Would we have this much uproar if a vegetarian refused to pack meat at work or a Jewish person didn't want to handle kosher food? Is that forcing your religion on someone, or just abstaining from doing something you don't feel comfortable with? There is a vast difference.

sum1

No, it's not the same as a vegetarian not wanting to pack meat or a Jewish person not wanting to handle non-kosher food. It's more like if a vegetarian cab driver refused to allow meat (neatly packed and thoroughly contained, not messily all over the place -because that's how packaged booze is) in their cab or if a Jewish cab driver refused to allow non-kosher food (again, thoroughly contained and packaged) in their cab. And in those cases the Jewish and vegetarian cab drivers would be bringing their religion/dietary rules a little too much into their work and imposing them on other people to whome they don't apply. If somebody can't handle the transporting of normal items then maybe they shouldn't be cab drivers.

Papri

If I were a cab driver which evidently I'm not, I'd still maintain the theory that it's my cab, and I can choose who or what I do/don't want to transport. As long as it's not breaking the law (they're not obliged to carry alcohol for example) then fine. Obviously, if service is refused on the grounds of race, sex, religion, sexual orientation then that IS wrong.

I still want to know exactly HOW all these people knew she had alcohol though...? Did she declare it or something?

elisheva

Isn't it religion-based discrimination, though? They're discriminating against a woman who is going against the tenets of their religion.

*Ledi*

That sounds a lot like the man in the White House right now.

sum1

Cabs are a basic service and it's unfair for a cab driver to discriminate against people just because they aren't following the restrictions of the driver's religion.