Muslim cab drivers: Serve or be served

The Minneapolis Star Tribune writes that the Metropolitan Airports Commission will vote today on penalties for cab drivers who refuse service to any passenger, for any reason. The is the latest development in the dispute between Muslim cab drivers and the airports commission after Muslim cabbies had refused service to people with guide dogs or who had alcohol in their carry-ons (both dogs and alcohol are verboten to strict-practicing Muslims).

Previously, the airports commission had ruled that cab drivers refusing service would have to go to the beginning of the cab queue (a three-hour wait).

Conservative columnist Katherine Kersten also wrote on the issue of accommodating religious beliefs of Muslims today in a "slippery slope" column. She discusses the Muslims Accommodations Task Force (link provided, but the server was down at the time of posting):

The task force's eventual objectives on American campuses include the following, according to the website: permanent Muslim prayer spaces, ritual washing facilities, separate food and housing for Muslim students, separate hours at athletic facilities for Muslim women, paid imams or religious counselors, and campus observance of Muslim holidays.

I think the organization's goals reflect two big ideas: 1) that Muslims would like to feel free to practice their religion in their daily life and 2) that this organization has a poor understanding of why Americans have fought against "separate but equal" for 60 years.

Accommodations are important means to respecting each other's beliefs. Separate facilities are a gateway to deliberate discrimination and misunderstanding. In the same fashion, the Airports Commission is right to draw the accommodations line at where other people's rights are trampled on.

Note: on that topic, Skemono has an interesting look at how civil unions have promised the equivalence of marriage for gays, but how in practice it's more like providing a "colored" restroom.