The cab companies are private, but under license, and the rules of how to work the airports are very strict. I.e., you can’t just drive to the airport and pick up a fare, you go to the airport and join the cab pool and everybody gets the same exact deal. You can only join the pool if you take someone there or are called there by the airport authority, etc. And, if you don’t follow the rules you lose your permit to even drive on airport property. Not all cabs can even go to the airport.

The right of practicing religion was pitted directly against being forced to follow a government regulation in a highly regulated environment, not a gov. agency but darn close to it. I’m not sure what the outcome was, but as I recall, the cabbies were forced to either give up their airport privileges or to get with the program and not discriminate.

It wasn’t seen as the Muslim cabbies being discriminated against by the courts, as I recall.

Welllllll…….. Shit, now I’m thinking about religious “doctors” and that thought scares me, so I’ll just admit I’m wrong.

I still side with the cab drivers though. Cognitive dissonance or what not.

Anyway I’d be pretty interested in an ethnographic breakdown of Twin Cities cab drivers and cab riders. I’d bet it would reveal a bunch of rich white dudes telling Brown dudes their religion doesn’t matter in america(fuck yeah)

Another example that comes to mind is a problem we had in the Twin Cities with cab drivers who discovered that it was against their religion to transport passengers from the airport who were carrying spirits in their luggage. I think initially there was a great deal of confusion, but at this point it is pretty clear: If you want to be a cab driver, you can’t refuse a fair without good reason, and thats not a good reason.

The principle that applies here is: Suck it up or go away. Really, not hard.

If somebody who came out of the closet used that as an excuse to refuse to provide services to, say, conservative christians, then I’d be all for firing their asses too.

You need to restrict the jobs you take to those where this will not happen. If you were in error or things change and you must then do something against your ethics, then you must quit. This is not hard.

Apply this thinking to people that suffer an injury, or age, or are transgenered or come out of the closet. All of those situations have impacts upon employment, just like this ass-hat’s religion does. Should their employment be protected?