"Howsa about those pharmacists that refuse to sell birth control?"

Damn you scenebooster. Took the words right out of my mouth.

And to Ragingbear:

"Hypocrisy clean-up, right side of aisle 3"

If they are unwilling to do their job, then they should be fired. Whether it be a Muslim refusing to scan pork at a register, a pharmacist that refuses to give certain medications, a teacher that refuses to teach evolution, or even a sewer worker that states that it's against his religion to touch sewage.

They knew what the job required, and simply because their preacher told them otherwise means nothing. Fire them, and don't let them get any unemployment either.

Just do your friggin job.

scenebooster,

You sure seem to be look for ways to attack Christians. The two posters before said nothing of their belief that it would be "OK" for Christians to refuse service.

Um, so all those teachers who refuse to teach evolution (or sex education) should be fired as well?

Teachers who refuse to teach the board-approved curriculum are insubordinate and CAN be fired. So should this guy and any pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription.

Godisdead,

I don't think any of those that have posted against the actions of the clerk so far have stated they were Christians and based on their posts in the past are anything but Christians. But I am sure you won't let that get in your way of hating Christians.

Now, I am a Christain, and I fully support this person in not doing something that is against their religion.

Insubordination = termination. Too bad deportation isn't also an option.

"We need to adapt to them too." BS. If she wants to wear a headscarf, OK. That's no weirder than the Mennonite bonnets you see around Lawrence on occasion. But refusing service to a customer when the type of work was obvious upon hiring should be automatic termination.

I wish I lived there... Here's what I would do...

I would use www.buzz.mn. to line up a bunch of like-thinking malcontents. We would go to the store an fill up our carts with pork chops, hot dogs, and beer. We would then get in her line, and just pile it up at her register. When she refused to touch it, we would also refuse to touch it and just blockade her line until the manager showed up at which time we could complain about her refusal of service.

The manager would probably just assign someone else to check us out, but we'd have a heck of a Bar-B-Q afterwards!

After a few weeks of this, I wonder what would happen?

Scenebooster,

Where did I judge others?

Marion, that statement also applies to the right-wing around this place.

Wheather you agree with them or not, at least most of the liberals think for themselves and don't have Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh telling them what to think, say and do.

Free thinkers, my a++!

Thanks, BigAl

Scenebooster,

It was my intent to point out that those that had posted in regards to the topic have in the past derided Christians and their post history would bear that out. Godisdead was assigning their post to Christians to base his attack and it is my assumption that even they (the posters) would deny being followers of Christ.

I have tried to live under the phrase "if anyone ever accuses me of being a Christian, I hope to have provided them with the evidence".

With that, I apologize as it does appear to be judgemental and I cannot rightly judge the posters hearts.

And no, I have no idea what dt motive is with their postings about you. Odd.

Good lord, who on earth cares about this? It wouldn't even register to me. I don't care if I have to scan a porkchop for someone. Just because someone doesn't want to scan something doesn't prevent you from obtaining it, UNLIKE pharmacists. It isn't like the pharmacist will let you go get your own Morning After pill off the shelf.

What actually confuses me here is how a hermetically sealed package of something constitutes "handling." I mean, I can understand that if someone walked up with a suckling pig with a barcode tattoo, THAT would be "handling pork." However, I'm pretty sure that no porkness can get out of its fancy, plastic sealed bacon bag.

Scene, I think if we leave the guy from Topeka alone he will go away...

He has nothing to say anyway.....quite the one-track mind, broken record-type.

Sourpuss: I mean, I can understand that if someone walked up with a suckling pig with a barcode tattoo, THAT would be "handling pork."

That's fantastic. Thanks for the giggle!

If her intent was to refuse "selling, touching, or handling" of pork, then she failed anyway. Regardless of who scanned it, or who put it in the bag, she still took the money for said pork item, and so was technically selling it.

Didn't she know, before she applied for a job at a grocery store, that they sold pork products, and that she would be required to sell, touch, or handle said products?

This isn't merely a Muslim thing, though. Many Jewish people don't eat pork. I'm not sure what they think about "selling, touching, or handling" pork. Some Christians do not eat pork (7th Day Adventist). Again, I don't know if this includes not "selling, touching, or handling" pork.

It's a story, I guess, because I never heard of a clerk of any other religion refusing service to someone because they don't eat pork. I suppose this would be akin to the vegetarian getting a job at a supermarket, and then refusing to scan any meat or dairy item that came through the line. You'd all be all over them about it.

What would she have done if she'd got a job at a restaurant?

To be fair, stores don't sell people meat products, they sell styrofoam or plastic containers, that perhaps HAPPEN to have a meat product in them.

It's all in how you look at it!

As the wife of a Muslim and part of a Muslim family I would have to say that Muslims should not put themselves in a position where they may have their religion interfere with their job. I can see where a Muslim not wanting to touch pork in non-food service position/grocery store clerk, how ever if the job involves pork you should probably abstain from that position.

It is not society's responsibility to conform to religion, it is society's responsibility to understand/and be respectful of other religions. Some religions allow the eating of pork/consumption of alcohol. So be it.

Also Muslims aren't prohibited from touching alcohol such as pork, they are just not allowed to indulge wrecklessly.

Pork is unholy whereas alcohol consumption in excess is seen as spiritual weakness.

My question is, does the cashier handle other types of meat besides pork? If you want to be technical, unless the meat is halal or (butchered according to very rigid specifications; the Jewish equivalent of kosher, although kosher meat is okay for Muslims too) it is forbidden and she shouldn't be touching ANY meat. Halal meat is not available in your average grocery store so I seriously doubt that the other meat she is handling is halal. If she is going to take a stand, she needs to be consistent, rather than make all Muslims look stupid. After all, this did make national news.

However, I'm pretty liberal on this subject because if bacon is accidentally put on my food, I tend to pick it off because I figure wasting perfectly good food is a worse "sin" than incidentally ingesting pork juice, especially when there are starving people in the world.

Right_thinker,

It depends. Are you offended by the other people who refuse to touch your sausage?

Whether muslim or xtian, religious superstition and idiocy can only be tolerated to a point. If a religious superstition gets in the way of someone performing their job duties, they should not be doing that job.

-Cashiers not touching pork. -Science teachers not teaching evolution. -Pharmacists refusing to distribute certain medicines. -Teachers refusing to teach sex education.

All of these are failures of individuals to perform their duties. No one is forcing these people to do these jobs. They should find employment that does not require them to violate their religious superstitions.

Save

the

column

inch

!

I don't think this has anything to do with Liberals or Conservatives, so I don't know why both terms are being used. Yes, I also wonder why this Muslim woman was working as a cashier in a business where she may have to handle things that are against her religion, but at the same time, I don't understand how this is a Liberal vs Conservative issue.

I think if I went to Target to buy bacon, or any kind of pork product (which I would never do because I don't like pork products...unless my dad grills them -- he grills awesome porkchops) and if the cashier said, "I'm sorry, but I can't touch this because it's against my beliefs," I'd think it was kind of weird, and I'd probably call my friends and family when I got home to tell them about the experience, but I wouldn't get mad about it.

If being tolerant and patient puts me in the "Liberal" category, then I guess I'm "Liberal" but I think personality has more to do with the customer's reaction rather than political preference.

Who cares if she didn't want to touch or "sell" the bacon? It's a friggin store! Let the woman scan her own bacon and throw it in a bag. It's sad that society is so jaded that people cannot respect anyone else's religion or belief systems. Loading up a cart with pork products and purposely going through this woman's line is absolutely the most immature and disgusting idea I have read in a long time. I'm not even Muslim but the thought of taking a cheap shot at someone's belief that handling or selling pork is sin, is ridiculous. Sure, move the lady to stocking clothes or working the garment room, but it doesn't mean she should be fired. It's isn't easy to immediately find a reliable job, with flexible hours, that offers benefits, that doesn't pose some problems with your religion or beliefs, etc.

People just want to have something to complain about and far-right thinking conservatives jump on any possible opportunity to say bad things about people who aren't like them. They read articles like these and voice their opinions loudly, however anything they might hold close to thier own belief system, they'd defend it feverishly.

If I wanted to shop at a self-serve grocery store, I'm sure I could find one where I have to scan and bag all items myself. In which case I would also expect a BIG discount on the price of my groceries.

If this woman has such strong religious beliefs, then she should not have taken a job that would require her to do ANYTHING that would violate her religious beliefs.

I don't buy the bit about how it isn't easy to find a reliable job, yada, yada. It isn't easy for anyone. But there are limits to what most people would do for any job.

Would all you conservatives out there take a job, regardless, even if you knew ahead of time that it would require you to do something that was against your religious or moral beliefs?

I don't think most people would. If this woman was working in one area and they transferred her, she should have let her feelings be known then. Or she should have asked to be transferred to a different department.

If she's that much orthodox Muslim, then why is she working to begin with? Wouldn't the religion of an orthodox Muslim be against women working anyway? I would think so.

CrazyKS:

Scanning you own bacon isn't that big of a deal. You sound like those people who hold up the whole line at the grocery store complaining about your coupons or how an item that was $1.35 scanned $1.37. Get over yourself. I'm sure devout Christians that work at Target don't like selling condoms or the movie "Borat". If one of them decided to not sell those items, then every evangelical on Earth would come to their defense.

Employers cannot discriminate against a person's religious beliefs. They could move her to a non-bacon handling department, which I'm sure would be fine. Get over it.

Most people who have problems with situations like this one, are the same people who most likely make fun of Asian accents, get mad about the pledge of allegiance being banned, always believe stereotypes about other races, etc.

I've never used a scanning machine at a store, either. I've never been required to. I assume, in order to do it correctly, you should be trained how to do it. I haven't been trained.

A customer shouldn't have to scan and bag their own groceries, or anything else, unless they're in a place that is self-serve. If the cashier refused to do it, she shouldn't have expected the customer to do so. She should have called another employee over to do it for her. Or called the manager to do it.

Not the customer.

Maybe some of you remember the days when most gas stations were full service. An employee pumped the gas for you, washed the windows, checked your oil, whatever you requested.

When things began to change, for awhile some places had both full service and self service islands. I usually chose to go to the full service island. They charged more per gallon for gas for full service.

Once I went there and went to the full service island. There were no extra employees there that night to pump the gas, so I did it myself. I demanded, and got, the lower rate for gas, even though I was at the full service island, because I ended up having to pump the gas myself.

Same should be true at any store that's not specifically a discount store. If cashiers are provided and you aren't expected to serve yourself, and a situation comes along where you DO have to, you should demand, and get, a discount.

Why should you pay extra for service that you're not getting? Do you tip a waitress well at a restaurant if she gives you lousy service?

Some things are a given. Going to Target and expecting there will be a cashier there to scan and bag my items is one of them. If they are not going to require their employees to do this, then they should advertise themselves as a self-serve store.

If it's a self-serve line, then I expect to have to do it myself. If it's not, then I expect an employee to have to do it. ANY employee. If she didn't want to do it, she should have called another employee for help.

By the way, I rarely use coupons, Jamin...it's rude to the other customers waiting in line.

I don't mind other people using coupons, though. I'm never in that big a hurry that I can't wait.

Stop making assumptions about other people. Isn't that what you're accusing everyone else of doing to this woman?

"Posted by crazyks (anonymous) on March 16, 2007 at 11:49 a.m. (Suggest removal) It won't work, snap...no matter what you do or say, or don't do or don't say, you're bound to offend someone eventually."

I find you very offensive.

I find you very offensive, too.

Wasn't that fun?

In a similar vein to a previous post....

Maybe she should go work in a Halal butcher shop that only sells meat (such as camel meat) that is OK for Muslims. Oops. But then she would be working for wages outside the home which is sinful for many Muslim women anyway.

It sounds to me like the only way for her to observe all aspects of her Muslim faith is to quit.

Crazy - I agree with you that the best practice would have been to have a supervisor or other employee scan the item for her. But since the article made a point of mentioning that Ms. Dsouza was in a crummy mood and a hurry, I doubt that would have solved her problem.

I've worked part-time at a grocery store for several years to supplement my full-time job. My experience has been that most people want a simple and convenient shopping experience. If the lady didn't like having to scan her own bacon, which is fine, then make a complaint to customer service or the store manager. Or if she was in such a hurry at the time, write a letter to the company. And if the whole experience was truly that upsetting to her, then shop somewhere else. Pretty simple. I think it's very sad that people have so little going on in their lives that they obsess over minutiae like one bad experience at a check-out counter.

I'm not in any way stating that she does not have the right to uphold her religious beliefs, or that the store should penalize her for those beliefs.

What I'm saying is that she should have considered this before she took a job there. And since Target is not a self-serve store, when confronted with the situation, she should have been more respectful toward the customer, and asked another employee to scan and bag.

However, there are other aspects to the story that don't make sense to me. If she is such a devout Muslim, and adheres to all aspects of her religion, then why is she working in public to begin with?

It still was not a respectful thing to do to the customer. If she wants respect, then she should see the need to be respectful of others as well. Next time, she should ask another employee to scan and bag.

I admit I don't know a lot about Islam. I thought it was against the religion for women to work.

You're right, radrhett. Probably this customer wouldn't have been happy regardless of what was done.

But there should be some kind of store policy to handle situations like this when they come up.

Just out of curiosity...what do you think would happen at Target if the employee was a Jehovah's Witness, and they refused to scan or bag any Christmas items and asked the customer to do it themselves?

Same thing would happen to a Jehova's witness. I agree that the person should be moved to a department that doesn't cause conflicts of interest. I took offense to the mean, anti-muslim suggestions (none of which came from you crazyks) and the thought that this person should automatically lose her job. That is just narrow-minded.

I imagine the situation involved someone who WOULD have had another employee scan the item but she probably thought that it would save the customer time if the customer did it, instead of waiting for an available employee (since this woman was in an unbelieveable hurry, apparently). None of us were there so who knows? I have seen several situations where businesses have bad service, but I have also seen situations where the customers had no understanding of the situation and chose to cause a fuss just because that is their temperment.

Pharmacists refuse to dispense medication every day, for a huge variety of reasons. There are a lot of sloppy doctors out there, and a pharmacist that's doing their job will refuse to dispense medications that will potentially do you harm - lethal doses, medications that interact badly with others that you're on (that you may have forgotten to tell your doctor, or your doctor just wasn't paying attention), etc. Their job prevents the doctor from doing you harm. Now, the line gets blurred when the pharmacist honestly believes that they're doing ANOTHER person harm by dispensing a medication.

Personally, I'm pro-choice, but I'm very against limiting a pharmacists' right to refuse to dispense medication. I can always go to another pharmacy, but I count on that pharmacist having the ability to stop prescriptions that may hurt me.

There's a growing idea of religious belief's entitlement. So, that said, I am hereby stating my religious beliefs.

1. It is my religious belief that I must make love to 1 beautiful woman per week as a tribute to my lord. Blondes are the most pure and will get my soul to heaven the fastest.

2. All animals are unclean and filthy with two exceptions - shrimp and lobster. All other foods are unholy and will disgrace me in the eyes of my lord if ingested.

3. Similar to praying facing west 3 times a day, I must view unclothed images of only the most beautiful women 3 times a day, for at least an hour in length. Firing me for following my religious belief in worshipping god's creation violates my religious rights.

4. My religion believes that to keep the temple of my lord pure, I must not labor more than 2 hours a day and even then no more than 3 days a week.
   

Laugh if you will, but I truly believe this - and in America, we apparently can't deny anybody their beliefs, no matter how foolish (we can't even call them foolish!) they are.

There is a big difference between a pharmacist not giving me a prescription because it will interact badly with something I am taking and unwilling to give me a prescription because it doesn't fit THEIR beliefs.

And in rural areas, there is often only one pharmacy within a huge distance. Time is of the essence with plan b, and asking a woman to get a ride to the next town with a pharmacy, possibly after suffering sexual assault, because someone is unwilling to do their job is not right.

She didn't refuse to let the lady have her dang bacon, and probably didn't give her a lecture about the evils of pork.

Actually, really, there isn't a big difference. If someone truly believes that they are killing someone, then ethically, they can't really dispense it. Personal beliefs HAVE to factor into a pharmacist's practice. A doctor may prescribe something "believing" that it's okay for the patient, and the pharmacist may disagree. And the power to 'lecture' can't be taken away, either. If your child was prescribed a medication that was MUCH stronger than was needed because the doctor misfigured and didn't want to admit that they might be wrong, and while "technically" it shouldn't kill your child, wouldn't you want the pharmacist to tell you, so that YOU could decide if you wanted to find another doctor, and know what signs of overdose to look for if you did decide to give this to your child?

Plan B is over-the-counter. It is kept behind the counter by law, so that 15-year-olds don't use it as a primary means of birth control, but anyone in the store can sell it - not just the pharmacist. Most pharmacists will just quietly have another person in the store sell it to them.

And I do sympathize with those that live in rural areas, however, it's most effective if taken within 72 hours. If you, or anyone you know, ends up in this situation, and you can't for whatever reason get to a neighboring pharmacy, I'd recommend calling that pharmacy, and having them overnight it to you - you'll still have two days to spare. Or call your doctor, and get instructions on how to use your regular pills to do the same thing. The pill has been used for this for years, same chemicals, and MUCH cheaper.

It does kind of suck that it can be potentially inconvenient for women to get Plan B, but one has to be extremely careful about what they demand in terms of legislation. Drugs aren't like spices at the Merc - measure out your own and take them home, and there are reasons for this. We get in the habit of being able to cry and get our way in stores, and this isn't, and probably shouldn't be, how it works in pharmacies.

I'm on the fence with this one.

On one hand, I agree that a person should do the job that they were hired for. In this instance, I think cab drivers should pick up people with service animals, people carrying alcohol and I think a cashier should have to scan pork or any other product that the store sells. If the person feels that strongly about it, then the person should talk to the manager to see if he or she can be transfered to another part of the store --the floral department or bakery.

However, I do not think a job can turn around and change the requirements after the person is hired if hired or if the person has worked there for a great many years and the rules were changed afterwards. There was an instance a year or two ago, where a librarian was fired from her job after working at this library for over a decade. The library changed its hours to include Sunday hours. The librarian, who everyone knew to be devoutly Christian, refused to work on Sundays citing her religious beliefs. These were well known beliefs. The case went to court and the court sided with her. As I feel they should have.

As for the cashier, I'm willing to give her a little bit of a pass. It is hard to settle into a new country. She may not have known all the applicable laws and she may have just been doiong what she has always done. It think if this is a serious issue, the manager should set down with her, a representative of the Somali community, and a mediator and come to some sort of agreement.

I don't think she needs to be fired over something like this nor do I think she should be subjected to the hatefulness that is so evident on this board.

Dena

"...If you want the comfies of America then BE an American! ....:

Define what it means to BE an American?

He urged people to remember the extraordinary adjustments many Somalis have made. "Many of these people are refugees. They may have been tortured. And they came here having never held a book in English," he said. "They're already adapting to our society. We need to adapt to them, too."

Ummm excuse me, here.....! WE did not go to their country to change OUR ways of life. THEY came HERE to change/escape THEIRS! If you want the comfies of America then BE an American! Otherwise, open up your own company and only serve/sell those items you are allowed to under your religion.

What is it to be an American?

New citizens coming to America. Their goal? To have the life they were denied in their homeland. To that end, they wanted to become American citizens as quickly as they could so they would not risk being deported. Then they went about the task of becoming Americans.

Becoming an American means assimilating into the American way of life, the American culture.

So, what is it that we need to learn and understand in order to be a good American? And how do we do it without giving up our way of life? The answer is a relatively simple and short document. The Constitution of the United States, piece of paper that the entire structure of the United States is built on. It says, in short, that everyone who is a citizen has the same opportunity to have the life they want as does the next citizen. And the laws we make today convey and protect that right.

So the next time you wonder if you are an American or even want to be, remember the Constitution and think of all the countries in the world that don't have it and the kind of life they offer. And when you have read it and understand it you can tell anyone and everyone what it is to be an American and you are proud to be here and to do your part in protecting it and what it stands for.

"To BE an american, it means don't go shoving your ideals, beliefs, religion, customs or what the !@$##% ever down our throats! "

Next time there's a meeting of the Phelps clan, ksmom, you can try to let them know this. Don't think it will work, though.

You might have better luck trying to convince Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly that they shouldn't go shoving their ideals, beliefs, religion, or customs down our throats, but I don't really suppose you'd get very far there, either.

Gee...it seems that "real" Americans try to shove their ideals, beliefs, religion or customs down the throats of others every day...including their fellow Americans.