Discrimination involving Muslims has surfaced at an airport in Minnesota, but rather than fighting it airport officials are doing their best to institutionalize this blatant discrimination and make it their official policy.
In a completely outrageous and unAmerican fashion, some Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport are refusing to give rides to passengers carrying (sealed) bottles of alcohol.
"It's become a significant customer-service issue," said Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission.
Rather than standing up to the forces of intolerance and taking a stand that taxis should pick up any passenger without discriminating on the basis of race, color, creed, or toxicity, instead the airports commission has struggled with the issue for several years. They're even thinking of introducing a color-coded system of lights on top of the taxis, so that airport officials will know which taxis will accept alcohol-toting passengers and which will not, and they can then steer passengers towards an appropriate cab based on a quick passenger "likely-boozer?" assessment.
Since the Qur'an forbids buying, selling, drinking or carrying alcohol, devout Muslim drivers feel that knowingly transporting passengers carrying alcohol is a sin.
Christian Scientists don't believe in surgery, so most don't consider becoming a surgeon as a career choice. Quakers believe in non-violence, so most don't consider becoming cops or soldiers. I'm a software engineer, and I've turned down work involving military and other classified computer systems because they're used to kill people. Anyone with strong moral convictions is going to find some types of work morally repugnant. If you have a moral problem with transporting alcohol, you probably shouldn't take a job as a beer truck driver, a limo driver, or a taxi driver.
It's a free country -- feel free to get a job more suitable to your belief system.
