It’s been a matter of minor news around the blogosphere that our local airport has inspired a fatwa claiming that Muslim cabdrivers are not allowed to transport passengers who are carrying alcohol. The latest story is here. The airport commission is insisting that it will not tolerate denial of service for any reason other than safety.
Claims that the airport is discriminating against Muslims are, to put it plainly, bunk; the airport’s punishing non-safety-related denial of service regardless of the religion of the cabdriver. What this involves is religious accommodation. A group of contractors want an exemption from the rules that otherwise would apply to everybody. By requesting the accommodation, the non-booze-transporting cabdrivers are asking the airport to discriminate in favor of (some) Muslims. That’s what accommodation is: bending the rules for some, but not for others.
Accommodation is relative. Sometimes it is reasonable, sometimes it is not, and the dividing line is pretty subjective. Add to that this: once a particular group is accommodated, another group may demand accommodation and claim discrimination (plausibly this time). You accommodated them, now you have to accommodate us. So it has a way of spreading. Which is why government should be reluctant to impose accommodation on individuals and on private enterprise.
I side with the airport commission here. Allowing cabdrivers to pick and choose whom they carry imposes that accommodation on travelers. Nobody’s forcing anyone to take cab fares from the airport. If your religion keeps you from doing the job that you signed up freely to do, you need to find another job. It’s tough? Yeah. It’s called sacrifice.
This kind of issue touches Catholics too, especially in medical matters. I’m thinking of the pharmacists’ rights movement — groups like Pharmacists for Life who are trying to get laws passed that protect pharmacists from being fired if they refuse to fill certain prescriptions, say, birth-control pills.
Perhaps I put myself in the minority among Catholic bloggers by saying so, but government shouldn’t force stores to accommodate us that way.
I’m not saying that Catholic employees should co-operate in evil. I’m not an expert in canon law, and as I write this I am not sure whether filling contraceptive prescriptions could ever be permissible. I know I’d want to be safely on the side of good. If I were a pharmacist, I’d refuse to fill prescriptions for contraception. If I were a nurse, I’d refuse to assist in abortions or sterilizations.
That would make it hard to get or keep a job. Yup.
If I don’t fill this prescription, it’s not like they’re not going to get the drug. They’ll get it somewhere else. There are plenty of people who will fill it.
That’s right — there is no reason why it must be filled by a practicing Catholic. None of us is tasked with preventing evil. We are, rather, tasked with not doing evil. And sometimes it’s tough. Sometimes you get fired for refusing evil. Sometimes you go to jail for refusing to do evil. Sometimes worse things happen.
But if what you really want to do is prevent evil, look at it this way — it’s sort of like going on strike. If every Christian doctor refused to prescribe birth control, or perform abortions, or euthanize disabled babies, well, it would get a bit harder for businesses to pick and choose whom they hire and whom they fire. It would make it that much tougher to be in the business of selling drugs that destroy life, destroy life-givingness. It would pressure the businesses right back. Maybe then those providers would hear: I ought to fire you for refusing to do your job, but … I can’t. Not because some government entity won’t allow it, but because there aren’t enough people who are willing to co-operate with evil.
I will not sin for money: denial of service. Someone is going to get paid to commit this sin anyway, so it might as well be me: denial of hope. Which is worse?
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