Editorial:
Public Policy and Intolerance in Commerce
As Pam recaps in her post, the original article in the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune explains that cities across the U.S. and other countries have been grappling with demands by persons of certain religious affiliations for exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. As an example of such discrimination, some Muslim cab drivers refuse to transport blind people with seeing-eye dogs because dogs are haram ("unclean") according to the Qur'an.
Officials in Minneapolis have rejected the two-tiered system that would have allowed cab drivers at the airport to discriminate without having to go to the back of the line and start again waiting to pick up a fare. The reasoning behind the (Minneapolis) Metropolitan Airport Commission rejection of the Muslim cab drivers' request for exemption was that allowing Muslim drivers to decline fares without sanction "would amount to an acknowledgement that Shari'a, or Islamic law, is relevant to a routine commercial transaction." Moreover, and beyond the immediate matter of the Muslim cab drivers, making such an accommodation would likely be the first step onto a slippery slope where other groups claiming religious reasons for discrimination in commercial transactions would press their own demands for exemptions based upon a variety of religious tenets.
In the comments thread to Pam's post, I set forth a fundamental argument against government recognizing a commercial operation's right to discriminate, even when such discrimination arises as an expression of strict adherence to religious beliefs held by the owners or employees. In edited and extended form, I herewith present my statement originally published on that thread.
First, and as a general matter, the issue has to do with what is called "public policy." If we are to dispense with a world where government does not or should not exist, then we must accept that government has a duty to enact and enforce certain laws that promote order within the civil society. That means no business that anticipates earning revenues in that society may be permitted to act in a way that has been deemed contrary to what is right, just, and appropriate for securing, maintaining, and advancing that society. In a democracy, this ultimately places an affirmative and altogether compelling burden on the electorate to ensure that those who write laws promoting public policy see that such policy indeed expresses rightful action, just in its foundations and expressly beneficial to the good of the society.
In other words, it is a cop-out simply to throw up one's hands and say, "Every man for himself." It is far more difficult to be a responsible citizen insisting that decency and tolerance be the unwavering, guiding principles in determining what is public policy. Consequentially, it is the duty of the citizen to promote good public policy through the election of just, fair, and reasonable representatives and furthermore to actively participate in continuing dialogue with those elected representatives to ensure that they do not stray from proposing and enacting laws that ensure a fair and tolerant society for all, not merely for some.
Furthermore, once a reasoned and well-debated public policy is put into law and operation, both individuals and businesses must expect that, if they are to garner all of the benefits of the society and its embedded economy, they must abide by those rules. To the extent that they elect to do otherwise, they face not merely the risk of civil or criminal action, but also the certain scorn of the public at large for behaving in a manner that deviates from societal expectations.
Important to acknowledge in what has just been stated is that a society, acting through laws, regulations, and the very community, itself, can be neither authoritarian nor completely libertine: in the former case, the most mean-spirited and parochial expectations will be laid upon the members of a society; and in the latter, the public sector will have utterly abandoned to human nature, base as it would inevitably become, the duty to carefully, parsimoniously, and with good intentions shape the behaviors of its members. This, then, is the necessary duty—demanding as it does eternal vigilance—of the ideal society: that it not act with an iron and overbearing fist to impose strict standards of behavior, but neither that it for even a moment ignore its responsibility to appropriately but minimally circumscribe personal and commercial action.
Now, to the second point, related to, but more specific than, the first. Cab drivers earn their living by using the public's facilities: its streets, its sidewalks, and its other pedestrian and motorized traffic infrastructure. That means they are using what is not exclusively theirs, and as such, they must accept that public rules, not their own, are what matter. The cab drivers use that which the public pays to build, maintain, and upgrade, so they do not get a free ride either in terms of safety, licensing, and operating standards or in terms of actual conduct toward those who would use their services.
If they wish to engage in discrimination, first, they should find a society where public policy either does not exist or where laws or lack thereof express support for intolerance; and second, they should use only what they pay for and own completely and exclusively. It is wholly unacceptable and in no small measure inexcusable for the intolerant to expect a just, tolerant, and right society to allow them to conduct commercial operations using the public's facilities while ignoring the expressed will of that society for its members to be in their own conduct just, tolerant, and right.
The Dark Wraith has spoken.
Published 10/18/2006 11:35:00 PM
<< 10 Comments Total
Can my mail carrier, who is a social and political conservative, refuse to deliver my Progressive Populist, Nation, Sun Magazine, Z, because they violate her core beliefs?
Can the chief of police of our little town who believes in the biblical principal "spare the rod and spoil the child" condones spanking with a belt, be excused from intervening in a child abuse complaint involving disciplining a child with a belt?
Can the road crew that plows my road in the winter refuse to plow in front of my farm because I have pro-choice, anti-war signs in front of my house?
I could go on.
My views on medical providers refusing service on any grounds is well known. There are certain professions that should never be able to discriminate, for any reason. If they feel that strongly about their beliefs they need a new job.
Now that they have started on that slippery slope it is just a matter of time before they start refusing to serve a certain race or sex. Do they refuse to carry single women as fares because they are unaccompanied by a male relative?
Lately I've been thinking this thought. Please don't let the end of my life be like the beginning. Segregated and dismissed. My father used to say that Jimmy Carter, when he ran against Reagan, predicted the future of this country. North against South, rich against poor, men against women, black against white. Tolerance would go out the window. Dad also said we were just a few steps away from a police state.
He's been gone since '91.
As an aside, I wasn't going to vote this year, nothing much going on in CA that would affect national politics, but I'm re-registering (I moved) and I'm going to test out the new system and see how much trouble it is for me to vote. It should be interesting. Also, I will be able to complain with a clear conscience, knowing that I did the first part of my duty as a citizen and continue to do the second.
At least until they take me away or the country wakes up from its current stupor before there is nothing left to fight for.
Yes, I even depress myself.
Eloquently spoken as usual Dark One.
As an aside to debra, certain pharmacists have proclaimed because of their evangelical beliefs, they will not fill prescriptions for birth-control pills or other medications that they deem "anti-life".
Never in my wildest speculations when I was a kid fantasizing about life in the 21st century, I would be witnessing a fight for secular reasoning in the United States of America.
How can we build spaceships to the moon and beyond if we can't even agree about evolution and biological science being taught in grade school? I thought this issue was settled 80 years ago.
We are destined to fall into balkanized states, dangerously repleat with nuclear weapons. Not the 21st century I envisioned.
Good morning Mr. Wraith,
This topic is a slippery slope as you note, but equally so in the opposite direction of your arguement. That is, where do you draw the line with a private business and its right to create and service a customer base of its choosing?
Let's use two divergent examples. The scenarios presented above by anonymouse are all government businesses (if you will), supported by our tax dollars. The idea that the post office can pick its customer base (or discrimate if you want to call it that) would be socially unacceptable.
But let's say I own a tavern or diner in Washington (which I dont'), where the state recently passed a smoking ban. This ban precludes my smoking customers from now smoking indoors. If I want to exclude a customer base by having a smoking establishment, that should be my right. Conversely, if I want to cater to the nonsmokers, to be it. Anybody going out for a drink or dinner has a choice to make as to where to go, and I don't think government should dictate that private business should have to cater to everyone.
The bottomline is where do you draw the line on government control of a business? You make a good point with the taxi's use of public infastructure, and I agree, to a point (for the reason set forth in my first example). And I agree with Debra, because health care is (or can be) a vital society service that most of us eventually need. But is going out to dinner a social service? No, if I don't like smoke I'll find someplace that is smoke free, and if I can't, I'll eat at home. I don't feel I have the right to expect every private business to cater to my specific desires.
As a business owner that does consulting in a specific niche, we choose our customer base carefully based on several factors. We refuse, fairly frequently, to do repeat business with clients that are assholes, nitpick our invocies, lie, etc. Is that discrimination? I think not. Should the government be allowed to tell me I have to work for a client that will not pay according to the terms of our contract that they signed? I think not.
Oops, I forgot to add, and I don't mean to be racist but, don't they have a monopoly on cabs in this country? If they can practice their business according to Sharia law it would cripple the transportation system.
I'm sort of joking and sort of not.
Good Afternoon Dark Wraith
Another fine and well thought out essay. A pleasure to read.
...the state recently passed a smoking ban. This ban precludes my smoking customers from now smoking indoors. If I want to exclude a customer base by having a smoking establishment, that should be my right.
You have that right - switch your "restaurant" to become a private, members only club. You could even give out memberships with every entree.
As long as you are a restaurant open to the general public, you come under the health rules of the state, including such things as using tongs in your salad bar, making your waitresses put their hair up and wear a hairnet, washing your hands after using the john... and there's an estimated 50,000 unnessessary deaths every year in this country from second hand smoke.
I read an article about it, and there was a deli owner in NYC who's wife never smoked a butt in her life. When she died early, the doctor who did the autopsy said her lungs were just like someone with a 30 year 2packs a day habit. She worked all the time in his deli. A lifetime smoker himself, he made his deli non-smoking the next day. And, contrary to all the fear and outrage, it didn't hurt his business, in fact he started getting compliments on the taste of his food - now that people could taste it without the smoke.
As for limiting your business to paying customers, and limiting the number of customers that you keep on your books, we have that right in any state. Doctors and dentists regularly close their practice when they have so many patients that they have no more room to schedule more.
But, for a muslim to refuse service to a blind person with a seeing eye dog - that's over the top. I say, if you can't do your job because of your religion, go get another job. period. I don't care if you're a taxi driver, a pharmacist, or even a doctor.
Good morning, Mr Wraith.
You raise an interesting issue here.
It seems as if Vlassic is able to get by with selling kosher pickles only because reasonable people are able to say, "Damn your kosher pickles! I'll take the unclean ones!"
Not quite wholly OT, but it has come to my attention that, if you place some he-mimes in a field of she-mimes, a lot of little mimes running about is not the precise consequence.
And approaching the issue from another angle: I have seen the word "bona" used in newspaper ads, for "bi-lingual only need apply." This reminds me of some paper I had to write for history class where we had to use the micro-fiche to cite the NYT as 2 sources. The time-frame was the late 1800s, and the word "nina," for "no Irish need apply," was quite common.
The above example of "bona" is from a Texas newspaper. In Florida, I found a more diverse hispanic community, and never saw this listed as a qualification.
Gypsy-
I was going to let this pass, but after the third time reading it I couldn't.
estimated 50,000 unnessessary deaths every year in this country from second hand smoke.
Estimated? It is "estimated" by radical woman's "empowerment" groups that 3 out of 4 women are raped during their lifetime too...I've seen how that number was gotten, and it is basically BS. I haven't seen any of the second hand smoke estimates by the smoking natzis using much better criteria. Numbers don't lie, but liars figure, or at least can manipulate the data to suit. Like correlating sunspots, women's dress length, and facial hair with election results.
I read an article about it, and there was a deli owner in NYC who's wife never smoked a butt in her life. When she died early, the doctor who did the autopsy said her lungs were just like someone with a 30 year 2packs a day habit. She worked all the time in his deli. A lifetime smoker himself, he made his deli non-smoking the next day. And, contrary to all the fear and outrage, it didn't hurt his business,
Yeah, and my father out-law has emphesma due to simply living his first 20 years in NYC. He neither smoked, nor hung out in smoky bars (well, he was hippified, so maybe there was some smoke involved, but not tobacco). How come she got so sick from the second-hand smoke, yet her smoking hubby didn't? Once again, the most even studies I've seen have shown smoking to be more dangerous than second hand smoke, so by rights, he should have croaked.
in fact he started getting compliments on the taste of his food - now that people could taste it without the smoke.
What, he didn't get compliments before?How the hell did he stay in business? What he was getting was compliments from the non-smokers making a point from their view. Personally, I smoke, and I am damn glad my taste buds are not more sensitive than they are. I habitually re-create spicing and such from restaurant meals I've enjoyed with great success.
It comes down to freedom. I do not smoke in the house, and tolerate the non-smoking sections because my family all has asthma. If I am alone, I tend to go eat as my mood strikes, but given two restaurants with equivelent menus, I'll go to the one where I can summon my food by lighting up (it never arrives between cigs), and end with a cup of coffee and a smoke. No one is forced to sit in a smoking establishment. Now, I am quite behind laws requiring adequate ventilation and separation between sections. But an outright ban is one of those things I find against the libertarian in me. I choose to smoke. I have had idiot non-smokers choose to sit downwind of me just so they can complain. I don't like other people's smoke in my face either, and I smoke. I will even be courteous and consider the wishes of a non-smoker when they are courteous to me. Tell me you promise not to fart if I don't smoke(which a fellow did once) just makes me blow my smoke in your direction.
The new whipping boy for the superior sort who needs someone to despise once negroes went out of style was the smoker. Smokers at this point are so pussy-whipped and convinced they are bad people that the mob turned on the gays. The gays fought back pretty effectively, so now the new victims to bash are immigrants/illegal immigrants or muslims. The smokers have been by far the most lucrative choice as victim.
The smokers have been by far the most lucrative choice as victim.
You certainly got that right!! They were trying just last year to raise the taxes on cigarettes AGAIN in CT. I had to write a letter to Gov Rell and tell her to back off! I have a co-worker who smokes, has tried to quit over and over, but has a very stressful life, taking care of first her twin sister who was dying of MS, then her best friend's husband who was dying of smoking. She barely makes enough to get by, and they wanted to raise the tax on her again, the fart-faces! I also think the idiots who are trying to outlaw smoking in public OUTSIDE are out of their freakin' minds. I'm just waiting for them to try to outlaw smoking in your own living room, if you have kids.
But, I've lived thru two different states' moving to ban butts in public places, and the same arguments were made and the same arguments were proven to be bogus. I think if a restaurant has a completely separate and good ventilation system, they should be able to have a smoking room, but who should be forced to work in there, and what would the liability be??
I've also wondered how they got those stats on second hand smoke deaths, but the same numbers keep coming up and are accepted. If they were wrong, surely after 10 years they would have been discredited by the rich companies that make butts... no?
Oh, the big tobacco companies have done studies-do they get much airtime? No, because they are immediately discredited as being biased. Nevermind that the other studies are equally biased as being commissioned by agencies who have a vested interest in gaining some of the tobacco profits for themselves-be it idiot smokers winning lawsuits "because they didn't know it was bad for them"(tobacco has been known as harmful and rather nasty for almost as long as it has been used...read Sherlock Holmes stories and it is mentioned there. Common sense says that if smoke inhallation in a burning building is bad for your lungs, then purposely inhaling smoke is bad for your lungs. Agggh.)Or be it polititions who see an opportunity to raise taxes without political backlash, either through things like the "tobacco settlement" giving their states money to do stuff with, or by directly raising the per-pack price. I've seen mention of studies that were in direct contradiction to the evils of second-hand smoke, as well as those that called it worse than ist hand smoke. Problems I've seen are that either the studies are small-too small-or in the large ones there is no way to sort out the myriad environmental and genetic variables...Like my father outlaw whose emphesema is caused by living in NYC and a genetic predisposition, not smoking. Hell, my dad smoked for years, his chest x-rays a couple years later showed no signs he'd ever smoked, yet now he has lung problems due to asbestosis(at least that is the assumption-a firm diagnosis would have involved examining each cell of his pleura under a microscope). I cannot see any way to do a truly controlled experiment to prove the numbers one way or another unless you purposely blow smoke at a group of homogeneous folks in a confined, controlled environment. And the thought of doing possibly deadly experiments on prisoners or military personell is to me Un-American(though it has been done). Maybe buy some poor kids to experiment on and help drop the poverty rate to study the effect on kids?