Taxi to Intolerance
We'll be on hiatus until the New Year, but we'd like to leave you with this excellent editorial (which appears in the current issue of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News) from Greg Kitsock, the editor.
Contributed by Greg Kitsock - Mid-Atlantic Brewing News
It’s hard enough to find a cab when you need one most, such as when you’ve just stepped off a red-eye flight or are standing on a corner in a drenching rain.
But visitors to Minneapolis are facing an extra obstacle. The 900 cab drivers who serve that city’s airport are predominantly Muslim, and many are refusing to accept passengers who are carrying alcohol, on the grounds that the Koran prohibits such activity.
An article in the Oct. 26, 2006 Washington Post cited the case of flight attendant Eva Buzek, who last March asked a cab driver to be careful with her bag because it contained bottles of wine. “I don’t take alcohol,” answered the driver. Buzek claimed that three other drivers refused her service. In August, she pretended to have wine in her bag to gauge the reaction, and said that four cab drivers turned her down this time.
The Metropolitan Airports Commission in Minneapolis reportedly was logging as many as 77 complaints a month about refusal of service, before a ban on liquids in carry-on luggage went into effect last August. The cabbies don’t get away scot-free. If they refuse to accept a fare, they have to move to the back of the line, which can cost them severely in time and money. But to the best of my knowledge, no one has threatened the drivers with fines or suspensions.
In fact, the airport commission briefly considered installing colored lights atop Minneapolis cabs to indicate which ones would transport alcohol and which ones wouldn’t. A barrage of 2,000 emails opposing the plan forced officials to drop the idea.
It’s certainly not the intention of this editorial to stir up a pogrom against Muslim-Americans. The cabbies in Minneapolis hail largely from Somalia, a strife-torn African country dominated by Islamic warlords, and practice a particularly austere interpretation of their religion. Most Muslims in the American service economy seem to have no problem conveying alcohol as long as they’re not forced to imbibe it.
Let’s also remember that there are many fundamentalist Christians in America who believe drinking alcohol is sinful and would be uncomfortable even in its vicinity.
That being said, the Minneapolis city authorities are setting a dangerous precedent in tolerating religious zealotry. There is a concern that Muslim taxi drivers might find more reasons to deny passengers service. Might a cabbie turn down a min-skirt-clad woman, claiming that she was indecently dressed? Could he deny service to any female, on the grounds that his religion does not allow him to associate with unrelated, unescorted women?
And what happens when believers of other faiths assert their own prerogatives? How about an Orthodox Jewish taxi driver ... could he legitimately refuse to allow a passenger to enter his cab because she had a pork loin in her bag of groceries? Could a devout Catholic deny service to a passenger sporting a NARAL button? Would a Hindu cab driver be in his rights to turn me down if I were carrying a cowhide briefcase?
How many differently colored lights would Minneapolis have to authorize to mark all religious preferences? Would hotels have to hire special concierges to match up fares with cab drivers of the appropriate religion?
The U.S. Constitution grants freedom of religion to people of all faiths. But there is no right to drive a cab. To obtain a hack license, you have to prove to the local authorities that you have the necessary skills and agree to obey all laws prohibiting discrimination. The Somali cab drivers have, in my opinion, crossed a line here.
What’s happening in Minneapolis can repeat itself in any large city with an international population. If any of our readers have been denied cab service because they were transporting alcohol, we’d like to hear from you.
