Why? Religious reasons, of course:
A former bus driver has sued the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, charging that the nine-county transit service discriminated against him based on his religion when he was fired for refusing to drive women to a Planned Parenthood clinic in January.
Edwin Graning, who was hired as a driver on April 1, 2009, was “concerned that he might be transporting a client to undergo an abortion” when he was assigned to take two women to Planned Parenthood, according to his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Austin.
Graning is seeking reinstatement, back pay and undisclosed damages for pain, suffering and emotion distress. He is represented by lawyers from the American Center for Law & Justice, founded by evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson.
Joanna Salinas, an Austin lawyer who represents the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, said, “CARTS denies that it discriminated against Mr. Graning because of his religion, and we are looking forward to responding to the lawsuit in court.”
The system, operated under an agreement among participating counties, offers bus service on fixed routes and through requested pickup for residents in the nonurban areas of Travis and Williamson counties and in all of Bastrop, Burnet, Blanco, Caldwell, Fayette, Hays and Lee counties.
After he was dispatched to take the women to Planned Parenthood in January, Graning called his supervisor “and told her that, in good conscience, he could not take someone to have an abortion,” his lawsuit said. The women’s names, their location and the clinic location were not included in the lawsuit. Planned Parenthood also provides health care services unrelated to abortion.
Graning, a Kyle resident, is “an ordained Christian minister who is opposed to abortion,” the lawsuit said.
His supervisor, who is not named, responded by saying, “Then you are resigning,” the suit said.
Graning denied he was resigning and was later told to drive his bus back to the yard and then was fired, the lawsuit said.
It is not religious discrimination if you are refusing to do your job. If you were a Muslim bus driver you would be required to take people to a bar, and if you were a Jewish bus driver you would be required to take people to a butcher that sells pork. If you don’t want to perform your duties, don’t pick a job that’s going to require you to act against your religious beliefs. The same goes for pharmacists who don’t want to provide birth control because of their own moral convictions – don’t become a pharmacist if you can’t be a pharmacist because of your ethics.
Why can’t some religious people understand the concept that their religious rights end where my rights begin? You can feel free to believe in whatever you want. You cannot, however, force me to believe the same thing or follow the same rules. And that’s exactly what’s happening in situations like this – religious people are denying services to people so those people don’t do something “immoral.” It’s not the bus driver who’s getting an abortion, or the pharmacist who’s taking the birth control. They’re policing what you do with their religious standards.
Not to mention that only 3% of Planned Parenthood services are abortion services. From pure statistical likelihood, it’s more probably that this man has stopped these women from getting Pap smears, breast examinations, STD tests, or birth control. Good job, sir.
(Via Religion Clause)
While my initial inclination is to agree with you on this, I think the issue may be a little more complicated. Since this was a special pickup, rather than a normal stop along a bus route, it seems as though some reasonable accommodation could have been made so this guy wouldn’t need to participate in what he views as a (potential) murder.I know I wouldn’t want to participate in, say, picking up the local church to drive them to the book burning festival. I’m not saying he’s right, and you certainly won’t find me campaigning for the defense, it just seems a bit more muddied than “he’s forcing his religion on people, get him!”
Well, obviously he didn’t care what service they might be getting. Women aren’t supposed to be empowered by things like std tests or birth control. That makes them into tools of Satan via temptation.And cancer in the breast and vagina are obviously God’s punishment for supporting Planned Parenthood, the abortion-loving heathens.———-It should be interesting to see what happens in this brief. Previous decisions have mandated that gov’t employees must not use their religion as an excuse to not perform their tasks. However. this is Texas, and the rules can sometimes be different in the Lone Star State. CARTS did exactly what they were supposed to.
It depends. Do his normal duties involve special pickups to take people to doctors, schools, church, and other locales? If so, then he has no protection. If a special pickup is part of his duties and he refused to undertake it for any reason other than going there would endanger his vehicle, then he’s guilty of not doing his job.
Not to mention–antibiotics/medicine for bacterial vaginosis, vaginal strep, yeast infection, or urinary tract infection. ALL OF WHICH THEY HANDLE. What an ASSHOLE
I think the argument that if you can’t do the job quit is unfair: it’s very difficult (if not impossible) to account for all possible situations when choosing a job, obviously minimise but this could be something the driver didn’t expect.That being said he’s still an idiot: people to often seem to conflate “right to freedom of religion” with “right to judge others and act within the laws of my religion”. As you say you cannot forces others to believe. I hope this guy has his case launched from court, possibly with the verdict posted in the planned parenthood clinic so he can get a clue as to what actually happens there.
I disagree LS. There is no such thing as ‘reasonable accommodation’ when it comes to doing your job. If you do not perform your duties as you are required under the terms of the contract that you agreed to upon being hired, that contract can be terminated, regardless of the circumstances. If you choose not to support the activities that may be enabled by said job performance, you are making a statement and choose to suffer the consequences. Part of Mr. Graning’s job was special pickups. He refused to do his job and was fired. It is as cut and dried as that.
Yet another example of how the moral high ground is rapidly ceding control to the humanist crowd. I have worked in jobs where I have had to accommodate my belief system (well, lack of belief system) in the service of my employer. Not once have I thought “Jesus Christ, this religious nutjob is about to do something I fundamentally disagree with. Screw my employer’s directives and best practices – I think I’ll save this poor unfortunate soul from himself.” Even in my daily life, I indulge all sorts of fantastic behaviour in the name of religion. I don’t make a habit of discussing my atheism unless and until people I don’t know press me on it. And I certainly don’t demand that they stop worshiping the fairy-tale du jour in order to make me feel comfortable with my own morals. I remain convinced that people like this guy, and the pharmacists who won’t dispense birth control, are glory seekers, relishing in the 15 minutes of fame they get and the justification of the permanently persecuted complex they’ve constructed for themselves.Sadly, this too is an example of how Planned Parenthood has been unfairly demonized in religious circles. I get why the catholics hate them – they have condoms! – but the protestants? Abortion is such a small part of the amazing work they do.
I agree. Even though I think SamCook has a point in that a bus driver probably couldn’t foresee this, it’s still very selfish to expect that everyone else conform to your religious viewpoint. He can think it’s wrong all he wants, but it’s her right to go into PPH, and yes, have an abortion. Who cares if there is only about a 3% chance that that is what she was doing? Even if she was having an abortion because she purposely tried to get pregnant just so she could have one, that’s absolutely none of his business. This isn’t a theocracy.
It sounds like this is the case: it doesn’t matter if the employee is told to follow a set route or do a special pick up, they are required to do what their employer tells them to. The quote also mentions that the system is run in combination by several counties and also involves requested pick-ups.
We’ve had not quite the same but similar issues here in my city in Australia with Muslim drivers refusing to take assistance animals in the car. There have been several cases where blind people have been left on the side of the road because the Muslim driver refused to carry their dogs, or demanded that they go in the boot of the car!Unfortunately they don’t get the sack, they get “sensitivity training”, even though such training was involved when they got their Taxi licenses in the first place.
So, you’re a Vegan; don’t take a job as a short order cook. Choose something else. So, you’re a Muslim; don’t take a job as a bartender. So, your religion prohibits work on certain days; either change job schedules or change jobs.So, you have other prejudices; skip that job as a Peace Justice. So, you still have a problem; get a decent job. Banking? Insurance? Lion tamer at a three ring circus?
He wasn’t sacked for forcing his religion onto people, though he did do that, he was sacked for not doing his job. We all have to do things we don’t like or agree with in our employment, but you either grin and bear it or find another field where you won’t be required to go against your beliefs.
Obviously we’re not intimately familiar with the situation, but it seems like it wouldn’t have been difficult to simply have another bus driver perform the pickup. Maybe there’s SOME reason it had to be this guy, in which case I would agree with you. But if there was such a reason, it has not come out yet. Maybe I’m way off base, but at the very least I think it’s useful to have someone playing devil’s advocate in discussions like these.
My employer has contracts with companies in Arizona. For reasons of ethics, I do not wish to associate with the people of Arizona. Were I to refuse to perform work on those jobs, I should, and would, be fired.
So, I’m an anthitheistic humanist, don’t take a job that requires me to build churches./agreed
First, this man sounds like an idiot. However…I do believe he has a right to refuse work that goes against his religious beliefs. I am not religious and I do volunteer for Options for Sexual Health (formerly Planned Parenthood in B.C.), but people who have opposing views have rights. I do think it’s acceptable for pharmacists to refuse to prepare contraceptives, but ONLY if there is another pharmacist available who is willing. I think this bus driver may have taken it too far, but religious accommodation is something I believe in, within reason.
You hit the nail on the head! Things like this make me start barking and foaming at the mouth.
No it does not “depend” – his job was “pick up people we tell you to pick up, where we tell you to do it, when we tell you to do it, and take them where they tell you to”.I can guarantee there was no line in there saying “unless you don’t think you should because a magical sky-fairy said not to”.If he was refusing to do his job, he should (and did) get fired for it. No ifs, no buts, no maybes, no special pleading, and that makes this a frivolous lawsuit. I hope he has to pay the court costs because crap like this costs everyone ELSE who pays their taxes money.
I’m torn between two comments – the first one is you’re an idiot for the first paragraph. Why is it not blindingly obvious that if you can’t do a job, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place? Besides – and this is the second and third paragraphs which I wholly agree with – it wasn’t a case of “can’t”, it was a case of “wouldn’t”.
May an atheist driver refuse to drive a christian to church?
And yet the driver wants reinstatement – employment in a company that assists people in abortions (by his definition). Obviously his convictions aren’t THAT strong…
That’s a false analogy.I could just as easily trot out the analogy that my boss often holds company dinners, and being a religious man, prays before the meal. Reasonable accommodations are made for me, in that I’m not expected to participate in this activity. Of course, “Company Dinners” aren’t exactly part of my job. But being ethically opposed to any interactions with any person from a given state isn’t exactly requesting not to perform one small duty which could easily be performed by someone else.
I can see that he would have the right, perhaps, to refuse to drive the women to PP IF the women announced they were going to have an abortion there. However, if the only information he had was that the destination was PP, then his refusal is out of line. Where does accommodation start and end? Can I refuse, as an atheist, to drive someone to a church? Can I, as a woman, refuse to drive someone (male OR female) to a strip club? After all, those places are against my firmly held beliefs. Would the driver have refused to drive a male to PP for condoms?
It is true, we do not know any specifics surrounding this case other than two facts: he was hired as a driver for that transit system and part of his job was special pickups; he refused to do his job and was fired. There may be circumstances we are not aware of, but the only documented event is his refusal and unless they said to his face “We are firing you because of your Christian beliefs” Mr. Graning does not have any real legal recourse. I agree, Devil’s Advocate can be used to embolden or weaken an argument, but without any actual facts it is just speculation and thus not admissible in a court of law.It is entirely possible he Evangelized around the office so much people did not like him, we do not know, but as long as he was not doing anything that violated company policy or his contract he was safe. Once he breached his contract he opened himself up to the possibility of termination. What about the customers who possibly did not receive the ride, thus that company’s services? Maybe they can sue him and the company claiming discrimination. Or the Planned Parenthood office could claim the company is restricting access to the location based upon a religious bias. There are a ton of sides in this and you can cut it many, many ways but at some point we have to focus on the facts: the driver refused to do his job and was terminated. Everything else is propaganda.
Nothing wrong with churches, they are just buildings. ; )
Zenlite made a good analogy, you made a poor one and you acknowledged it. You have the right to protest anything in this country, but if you break the rules, whether they be a law, contract or company policy, you will incur the consequences of your actions.
Good find Jen. It irks me when people play the victim when they’re actually the assailant: pretending that one’s religions affiliation is the source of one’s discrimination has enjoyed far too long a history of use.
well it’s saying that the service covers multiple counties, it’s also likely either a gov service or heavily gov funded, meaning there’s not a massive surplus of buses, drivers, or routes. evidenced by the fact that they have special circumstances such as pickups for people off the bus routes. covering such a large number of counties likely means that each route’s drivers are likely assigned a particular area they’ve got to cover in addition to their regular route, and they do those because other bus drivers on other routes are potentially busy on their own pickups, or possibly covering or helping cover his route while he’s off on the special pickup. it’s possible and perhaps likely that there wasn’t anyone else able to do this pickup, or sending someone else would fubar the whole schedule. I work in the plumbing industry and I would be fired if I was sent to a church, mosque, synagogue, abortion clinic, satanic church, etc… and refused to go based on religious or moral issues. heck we once sent an iranian plumber to a synagogue…it was his job, and he did it. it wasn’t his job to give the abortion, it wasn’t his job to HAVE an abortion, or have any part in this (likely not even an abortion) medical visit beyond providing the public transportation aspect of bringing someone from point A to point B which is his job, and he didn’t do it.
years ago when i worked security for a public library, they were going to have…I can’t remember his name, but he was one of the big white supremacist leaders…have some presentation in the auditorium. no one liked it, no one wanted to rent it out to him, but he had the first amendment right and the library couldn’t refuse to rent it to him. But because of it, they needed to contract more security in case of protesters and such getting rowdy. we didn’t have to agree with his message, or like that he was there, or even respect his right to be an utterly reprehensible font of ignorance and hatred. we just had to stand around and make sure nothing happened in the library. just part of the job sometimes
I don’t have a problem with the not working certain day’s thing for the most part. in general you get 2 days off a week if you go into a job saying “hey for religious reasons I can’t work yadda yadda yadda” and it’s something they can work around, most places will. if you can’t work on sundays and the job you’re applying for is only open saturday and sunday and you need to work 16 hours each day or something like that…well…yeah there’s no reason to bother applying for that job. but I think making the attempt to work around someone’s schedule is far less of an issue than say hiring a bartender that won’t serve booze, or a pharmacist who won’t fill birth control prescriptions.
I’m sure if everyone followed that rule (don’t choose jobs that violate your beliefs) there would be a lot less of this sort of crap going on in workplaces. So you don’t like potentially taking people to Planned Parenthood; don’t be a bus driver.
an employer has a duty to accommodate it’s employee’s bona fide religious objection, perhaps an alt route, etc only guessing without more facts.http://www.allbusiness.com/hum…
Calm down, son. I’m just saying that if they are often not asked to do special stops, he might be able to say he’s allowed to refuse. You can refuse tasks that are out of the ordinary. I don’t think it’s a defense – just saying, there’s avenues.
Regardless. That doesn’t mean they can’t fire someone for not doing their job. He didn’t say, “I worry that this might go against my religion, can I get someone to do this for me, and I’ll take over their task?” He said, “I’m not going to do it, because abortion is murder.” And he got fired. And he said he was “concerned that he MIGHT be transporting a client to undergo an abortion”. That is nothing but pure bullshit there. “I didn’t inquire to find out if they were going to have an abortion, I simply assumed it because they’re pregnant, and that must mean abortion is next…so I didn’t do my job.”Unless he had been informed that they were going for an abortion, what he was “concerned” that they MIGHT be doing, is completely and utterly irrelevant.
Sorry the 1st is poorly written I shouldn’t comment at 2am. What I was getting at is that in these cases people often say something similar to “if you won’t do the job then don’t do the job” which I think (can) be unfair: you may not realise how your job will clash with your beliefs: for example if were a bus driver and then they built an abortion clinic on one of your routes.I’m not trying to claim that being surprised by a job is an excuse for being an idiot just that I don’t think we can claim that if you don’t like, or agree, with some aspect of the job you shouldn’t do it: jobs like everything else change. If someone has such a serious problem with an aspect of their job they should try and position themselves so that it doesn’t interfere (ie Drs not dealing with planned parenthood if it breaks their creed) as well as this though should be the admission that if they have to they may have to perform an action they don’t totally agree with.All that being said I think in this case the bus driver was just being an arse, I just wanted to point out that after the event it’s easy to claim that “if your ethics wont let you do the job don’t do it” when you can’t always see the possible outcomes.I suppose a reasonable way of seeing this would be like this: if you were asked, as a bus driver, to drive a man to a “pray away the gay” event (or similar) would you feel completely happy?
Even better, don’t take a job as a chaplains assistant in the military or work in or for a church. I don’t see how the bus driver is justified, no matter what the religious reason, for refusing to take passengers to a legal location. No more or less than refusing to take passengers to a Summer Solstice ritual or somebody to an AA meeting. A bus driver, or taxi driver, has no right to question why someone wants to go somewhere. It sounds like a justifiable firing. I hope the, former, bus driver doesn’t get another job that offends his religious beliefs.
I hope this case gets thrown out on it’s arse. If you have certain religious convictions, sometimes you need to make a judgement call on what is more important to you.. your affiliations or gainful employment.We had an issue years back with a (number of) Sikh(s) who was in the RCMP (Mounties – just so you get an idea of the required uniform) who felt that because of their religious affiliation they should be allowed to go without the required uniform hat in exchange for wearing a turban.Similarly, when you enter a Royal Canadian Legion (basically the same as the V.F.W. in the States) it is a sign of huge disrespect to wear any type of head covering and by rights you can be ejected from the Legion for wearing hats etc… but there were people protesting that they should be allowed to wear turbans..This is where people need to ask themselves.. is it more important to me to be a Mountie or a Sikh? Is it more important to be a Legion member or a Sikh?In this case, if it was so important that he ‘save’ these women (despite it being none of his freakin’ business).. he should be willing to face the consequences of his refusal to perform his job duties, and not whine like a litigious little bitch about it.
To all of you saying he might have a case because the bus company didn’t accommodate his religion…allowing him to REFUSE SERVICE (or making another driver pick up these women) isn’t accommodating him.Accommodation would be allowing a Muslim to take his break at a specific time to allow him to pray when he is required. By y’all’s reasoning, he should be able to pull over at a specific time every day reguardless if he has passengers or not to pray.
Part of his job was special pickups. Doesn’t matter if it is once a year or every day. Also there is no such legal protection like you are implying for “unusual” requests. About the only thing you can refuse without repercussion is being told to do something illegal.This doof decided his principles would not let him do the job. Fine. There were consequences for his decision. He needs to accept this. Suing them because he made his choice is wrong.
Really does not matter. You have an employee refusing to domtheir tasks and demanding special accommodation for it. I’d fire them just for that. You don’t want your employee deciding what work they will do for you like that. Also this is the USA which is at will. You can be fired, or quit, on a whim for no reason. Certain legal exceptions nonwithstanding of course.
I have a reverse version of this in my history. I was working gor a “Christian” web hosting company. One of the people hosting was some gay hs kid who was religious who cane out and talked about wanting to go to his prom with another guy. I refused to shut them down web asked. I ended up getting fired over it, which I accepted and am kind of proud of actually. I don’t regret my decision and I don’t think they were wrong in firing me. I also took the job knowing what they were but since I simply needed the money at the time did not think of the potential ramifications.
This is simply ridiculous. Why people are defending the man, I can’t understand – he refused to do his job (pick up people at point A, drive them to point B, collect payment) for a stupid reason, therefore he lost his job. Simple.
That’s idiotic. Should biology teachers not be required to teach evolution because they don’t believe in it, as long as you can shuffle all the kids to the other teacher’s class who can teach reality? Why in the bloody hell is it acceptable for religious nutjobs to be able to enforce their beliefs on someone else? It’s not like the government is requiring someone to be a pharmacist or bus driver – then I’d agree. But in a free society where you freely choose your profession it is stupid that you shouldn’t have to perform your job when it doesn’t suit you. But I don’t believe in religious accommodationism because it’s too broad. If it’s my religion to not serve blacks, should I still be able to keep my job? Fuck no!
I think I’m pretty much the only one defending him, and really only because I think somebody should play devil’s advocate.
Imo, business is too tough to be doing that. To my limited knowledge, reasonable accommodation is for handicapped. Granted irrational beliefs is part of a mental handicap but that is a little abusive of that rule. Not sure if the bus company is like the one where I live, but there is a tight schedule for those reserve buses. Some last minute changes can possibly be made, but that is only if an opening is there. Which can cause severe problems for the person going wherever, which it has for me and a family member. I also doubt most businesses will sift through a list of locations looking for something that each driver might not like. “Ewwww gay bar, no way! I shalt not go near the den of sin!”. Also there should be at least some expectation of what might happen on the job. If a pharmacist or whatever has some qualm with birth control and studied contraception medications or knows of them, they should expect to be dealing with them. There should be a clear sign that says “We do not handle x”. They’ll lose plenty of business but they shall not be on their imaginary friends shit list. If a person cause a business to lose money and the company isn’t okay with that, I don’t see why the establishment should make accommodations for them. Evangelising of any kind is not always part of the job. People may be able to express certain views and legally are entitled to them, but a business need not suffer for it. That includes atheist views as well. I’ve had a cab driver go off about how crappy yaweh and christianity is w/o knowing what religion or my father was. Luckily for him I wasn’t a christian and someone easily butt hurt by comments. But very reckless of him to say such things. Just stfu and drive.
if thats the case, I want to start a religion that requires more pay, more days off, and never be able to be fired or laid off. O and pretty women should have to wear clothes I like or my gods will be angry and will sue for discrimination. Imo personal beliefs are exactly that, personal. Don’t eat pork? Bring your own lunch or better yet, during hiring process be required to discuss any little quirks that may hinder performance. People should not be fired because of their religious belief, but if they can’t do the job, they shouldn’t have it.
Well the courts don’t often question if the belief is sincere or even makes sense. But the law in question has quite a few caveats to how it is enforced. The accommodation has many restrictions including not being able to violate laws, seniority, contracts regarding work, or undue hardship on the employer. It can’t cost more than minimal dollars either. I’d imagine having a worker who couldn’t reliably work any shift would be undue hardship. Not to mention the potential for loss of revenue and the like. This is a stretch when it comes to accommodation IMHO.
I think the problem is communication (Isn’t it always?). Maybe the driver could have radioed his supervisor and told him the problem? I know if I as the supervisor I would have just told him to drop her off next door. Problem solved. I agree that religious people sometimes confuse their right to freely practise their religion with the right to force it on others. I’m in Australia, and here Good Friday is about the only day when most places are closed. I think the casino is even closed. But some shops are allowed to trade and do. One is a local car parts store. A lady I work with has a teenage son working thre and was outraged when he was rostered on to work Good Friday. She cited that it was restricting his right to practise his religion (I think he preferred the money frankly). I pointed out that living in a free country, he has the right to practise his religion any day he likes, and if that means finding a more suitable job then so be it. I think sometimes these people need to realise that in some countries (say, China) it is actually against the law and punishable to practise their religion at all, so they actually have it pretty good.
What if I were of opinion that green-eyed people were unclean and short people were mentally inferior (unfortunate as I am both green-eyed and short)? What if I decided to ignore, mock or discriminate against these people based on this belief? But what if I said my belief was based on a 2000 year old book that my mother and her mother had passed down the family and I felt so strongly about the words of this book, I’d decided to base my system of ethics and life on it? Then what if I took on a job involving customer service and I decided not to serve any of my green-eyed, short customers? Regardless of what you thought of my belief (and I hope someone would have the guts to challenge it and not cower behind the shield of ‘respect for religious views’) would it not be stupid of me to take on a job that clearly would go against my own principals? I think it would.
I think the suggestion is that it’s okay to try to accommodate such issues of conscience if (and only if) it does not force those beliefs on others.That aside, I think that a person should always expect to perform the core duties of their job, and I don’t see how a bus (or taxi) driver is responsible for the actions of their passengers. Issues of conscience are a matter of negotiation between an employer and employee, but the employer can certainly have red lines (especially in the US)
Re: last paragraph. No, but I’d still do my job. It’s ironic that a man who takes a job that will require him to carry drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless people, gay people, people of color, people in interracial marriages, Jews, Muslims, Pagans etc. balks at taking girls to PP.
“It is not religious discrimination if you are refusing to do your job.”And that is 100% correct. What about a pacifist who wants to join the Marines? What about someone who is a member of a religion that won’t fire a gun but he wants to be a cop? When he took the job he knew that he would be taking people to places that he might not like. PLUS he had no idea if his passengers were actually going to have abortions. If you are not willing to take all the responsibilities of your job then you should resign.
Agreed. Given that this is Texas, it’s probably an underfunded system (showing my bias, I know). But even if he wasn’t the only ship in the quadrant, it was still his freaking job. As a bus driver, he’s going to have to go to places he doesn’t like. Can he refuse to go to bad neighborhoods where crime is high? I doubt it.
Yes, an accommodation is allowing him to do something that does not effect the customers. Yes, you can take your lunch at 1:30 instead of 12:30. Yes, you can work the evening shift. Yes, you can have Saturdays off. There are many ways to accommodate an employee that does not effect customers. Letting the employee decide who he will drive around and where he will take them is not an accommodation.
You’ll like this, then. Sikhs in the U.S. Military can now wear their turbans. The (I think) 60-year ban is now over.
Ah, but if the bus company does that, then those girls can still sue for discrimination.
G’day anursescursesI have to disagree with your opinion and with your comparison.In the case of the opinion, how much of a right does an employee have to refuse a reasonable direction from their employer? There was, after all, nothing inherently illegal about the direction – pick up person and deliver them. To take it to a logical extreme, what if my religion forbids me from doing any work at all?Regarding the comparison, aren’t people entitled to not sell things to potential customers if they so choose? In any case, that’s a decision which affects the pharmacist him/herself as vendor, rather than the decision by the bus driver, which was to refuse to follow a reasonable direction.
Or swallow your pride for ONE day, and ask to be transferred to a different route the next. It’s not as if he’s the only person they employ.
It’s as if holding the moral high ground is only important as long as he’s still getting paid.
“No accommodation is required, however, if it would impose an undue hardship.””In the context of accommodating religious beliefs and practices, undue hardship means the accommodation imposes an undue hardship on your organization’s legitimate business interests. “”The employer must be able to prove that any accommodation would require more than ordinary business costs, diminish efficiency in other jobs…” [Part of an “Or” list, not an “And” list]”…what if a female employee’s religious belief or practice prohibited her from being alone in a room with males? Can this be accommodated?””…if the employee’s particular job required closed door, confidential discussions, the religious practice may pose an undue hardship. “In other words, they are not legally required to accommodate him at all in this situation because he is refusing to provide the service that they offer, and offering transportation is their business. Accommodating him in this case would pose an undue hardship on the company, and thus, his refusal to provide this service does not fall within the boundaries of this law. At all.
But you see, that’s fine. If they went through the proper legislation to have that regulation changed, there’s no problem with that. I don’t necessarily agree with that decision, and I can protest against it if I so desire, but that wouldn’t give me the right to refuse them their newly-found right to wear their turban. It would be exactly like refusing to provide bus services based on religious views. Granted, it would be the exact opposite situation if the law were still in place and they were demanding to wear turbans. They would not legally be allowed to do so, and thus they would not be able to take part in that job – the ramifications would be the same though. They could protest as much as they like, but I would not be required to accommodate for them.
First, I agree with this sentiment, and after reading a link from a few posts above, I can say that accommodating the driver in such a way would not be required by the business – because it would adversely effect their ability to do business. Second, in both cases for your post, I think the word should be “affect” and not “effect”. Yes, it’s pedantic. Sorry. <.<; I still agree with you though.
It is more honorable for you to have accepted the consequences of your action than it would have been to deny that there should be any consequences. I approve of your actions. Also, I now realize that getting on Tom’s back for using “effect” instead of “affect” was a little silly of me. <.<; I shall cease my corrections as of right now.
Notice that they are not though, despite being refused service. Yes, despite having legal grounds on which to base their case, none of these girls are pressing charges against the company. In an age where it would be all too easy for them to do so, it’s good to see that they have the courtesy to not put the company through that hassle. (And if any of them ARE pressing charges, then this post will be completely wrong.)
Oh, I completely agree. They just have the right to do so. The bus company is doing the right thing, too. They are firing the guy who invited a shit load of problems down upon their heads.
This. You have to remember that these kinds of people honestly and completely believe that abortion is murder. For them it’s a way different order of magnitude than, say, a Muslim taking people to a bar. They feel they are being a hero and saving a life, and they get confused or feel persecuted when their “heroics” are punished.That also means that they’re willing to get in the way even if they don’t know for sure that an abortion is going to occur – they think the potential outcome is too grave to take even a small risk of helping it happen.By bashing on the stupidity of this choice, we’re focusing too much on a symptom and not the root cause.
I realized the affect/effect mistake about 3 seconds after hitting the Post button. My daughter is the English major so maybe I should let her do the typing for me. ;)
I’ve seen cases where pharmacists have refused to dispense Plan B to those with a prescription. In Montana (Great Falls, more specifically), there was a pharmacy that refused to dispense birth control because the pharmacists felt like doing so was akin to abortion. The whole hullabaloo was about 4 years ago and it brought up the issue of ethics. My question: how awful was their pharmacy training that they equated birth control (which can also be prescribed for women with bad PMS) to abortion?
I’ve also informed protesters at various Planned Parenthood that their location doesn’t do abortions and that their protesting time would be better spent elsewhere.
I have to disagree with this line of logic. Most of the people who read this blog can probably agree that we find this man’s decision to be ridiculous as a) he had no indication that the women were going for an abortion and b) the job was not a strange request by his employer but rather something that he was initially hired to do.However, look at this from a different point of view. What if you are working at Ben and Jerry’s, say, as an ice cream tester (best. job. ever! :) ). You are a vegetarian, but you don’t really think it’ll be a problem because, come on, it’s ice cream. Then they come out with maple bacon flavor (please, let them come out with maple bacon ice cream)! You are morally opposed to this and, even though it’s a part of your job to eat the ice cream and rate it it would go against your ethics to do so. Do you not think that this person should be able to go to their supervisor and say “Hey, look, I know that this is a part of my job, but I’m ethically opposed to eating meat, so can someone else take this batch?” What if the person in this example was Jewish?We don’t, and can’t at this point, know all the details but if we are playing devil’s advocate let’s assume that this man was a good employee. That he was a hard worker, had great yearly reviews, the works. Let’s assume, for this exercise, that when this call came in he spoke over his radio to his supervisor and explained his position and asked for some other driver (who, we are assuming, is available especially since the man was fired on the spot – so I’m conjecturing that there was more drivers available to continue to offer service that day) to take this particular pick up rather than forcing him to do it. In this case, would it not seem reasonable? Should the employer force the man to do something that he’s against when another employee could just as easily complete the task, even though the task in question is not illegal?Now, if the man frequently made issue of pick ups, or if he was a poor employee in general, this could have been the final straw. But if it was merely requesting some reasonable allowances for his personal beliefs, I do not see a problem with that.However, I do agree with the logic that says that if you are morally opposed to something then you should not enter into a field in which doing said thing would be an integral part of your duties. However, I do not think that asking for someone else to do the Planned Parenthood routes necessarily counts as not fulfilling his duties as a bus driver.
What if Ben and Jerry’s could afford only one taste tester and it was you? “Sorry, but if you aren’t going to be able to taste test our new line of meat ice creams then you are going to have to be let go.” Presumably working out a schedule for special pickups is not easy. Having an employee tell you at the moment you need them that they will not do their job is not an inconvenience. It is way beyond that.
Thanks. Looking at my typos though, I need to get used to typing on the iPad better I think.
I don’t think that is an apt comparison. He is part of a service industry, he’s not a QA person. A QA person would be more reasonable to not test certain things versus a bus driver refusing to pick up passengers based on potential route information. Also if they are the only tester and refuse to test then they lose the job. Pretty simple.
This, essentially, is what I was too lazy to express.
It’s possible their pharmacy training was just fine, but their pastor/priest/local douchebag told them birth control pills cause abortions and who are you going to believe, your godless college professor or some guy with a funny collar?
I’m fairly doubtful this legally constitutes discrimination. He wasn’t being harassed for being christian, they didn’t refuse to hire him for being christian, and from the information in the article, he was refusing to DO HIS JOB. If he’d been fired/harassed for wearing a cross, or saying god bless you to people, or carrying a bible, or praying during his breaks, (I certainly hope he wasn’t praying while driving, at least not the hands-folded-eyes-closed-penitent-I-am-not-worthy-to-look-up-while-talking-to-you-dear-god kind of praying most christians do…) then maybe I could see this as discrimination. But it’s not.So… unless he had an agreement with his employer in advance which allowed him to refuse certain trips on the basis of his religious beliefs, I don’t see where he had ground to stand on.He refused to do his job. He got fired. If this was in Texas, or one of the other states with at-will employment, and he didn’t have a contract, they don’t even HAVE to give a reason for firing him.
You seem to misunderstand what his job is. CART is a program that drives people on medical assistance (most often people with disabilities and seniors) to medical appointments for care. Every stop he would make would be likely to be a patient being taken to a specific health care provider.(PS, I think you are wrong even if that weren’t the case, but you are misunderstanding here).
Woops, wrong program, my mistake.
Are you saying it’s like the military? When someone finds religion and starts taking the “Ten Commandments” seriously, out pops “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. When a member of the military decides he or she isn’t willing to do murder, they don’t rotate his or her shift. That’s grounds for separation from the service. It’s about doing the job.
But they did arrange to have another driver take people to Planned Parenthood. They just fired the driver who wouldn’t.
I agree. In a free society, bus systems have to provide network neutrality.
Yeah, no one has brought up the slippery slope. Now we’re going to have pharmacists who won’t provide insulin for the gluttonous, accutane for the vain, or provigil for the slothful. I can barely imagine trying to schedule around all of that.
But, you’ll notice that Sikhs in the military have to be ready to violate the Thou Shalt Not Kill amendment. Luckily, their religion, like most of them, doesn’t take it too seriously. (I’ve heard that you can kill while wearing a turban, though I don’t have any first hand experience here.)
Actually until 1984 Sikhs could wear their turbans. When they need to wear a helmet, they wear a mini-turban under the helmet. The Indian army has had Sikhs and have never had a problem.
Ah, but Planned Parenthood performs them, so they’ll probably stay where they are, just to get the most exposure.
Oof, my time frame was way off. Thanks for the correction. I was flying by the seat of my brain.
In addition, it would be none of his fucking business what they were doing there. Heck, maybe one of them was raped, and she was going in for VD testing. Would he protest that? Probably.
If it is anything like the service here in Seattle then it is underfunded, understaffed and strapped for busses. Driver was canned for cause.Hmmm Planned Parenthood sees a great many folks. I wonder if this was the first time this driver was asked to take someone there.
I think the problem here is that he didn’t make his religious objections clear ahead of time (or it sure seems like he didn’t). If he had come to some sort of agreement with his employer, he probably could have arranged to avoid a situation like this. Failing that, he could have driven the woman to the Planned Parenthood clinic and discussed the situation with his employer afterward. Instead, he chose to refuse to perform a task that was clearly within his job description, and got fired for it. I really don’t have a problem with religious exceptions, but they need to be addressed before they interfere with job performance. This guy has no leg to stand on.
That depends on your point of view. As with cemeteries, I find a number of their properties disgusting and personally offensive, from their purpose and use to their tax exempt status. While it’s never happened, being involved in the construction of one would be the most personally reprehensible action I could imagine taking. I would have to quit my job, rather than be a part of it.
Except that transporting individuals to special locations isn’t one small duty, it’s a primary aspect of this driver’s job (ie. significant enough to be included in the description of his employer’s offered services).A company dinner isn’t a job duty in your example, providing service to our Arizona clients is. Both my personal issues with that state and this driver’s with Planned Parenthood are personal proclivities which, unlike a temporary or permanent disability, shouldn’t require any special considerations on the part of an employer. If they both care enough and have the luxury to make such a choice in labor dispensation, that’s awesome, but by no stretch of the term should this be seen as requisite.
Suppose that your company (and by “your” I mean everyone in this conversation) desperately needs a contract with a church to avoid going out of business. You, being the best sales person, has to go and get this contract. The problem is that you will be expected to attend dinner with the pastor of this church and at dinner he expects everyone at the table to take hands with the person next to them and pray with him. What do you do?
Please do not perpetrate the myth that the Ten Commandments contain the phrase “Thou shalt not kill” That phrase does not, has not, and will never occur in the Bible. If the translators will take the time to learn hebrew and understand the whole of what they are translating, they would understand that it is “Thou shalt not murder” and has nothing to do with war, self-defense or animals
There are a number of factors that I don’t see mentioned when talking about pharmacists. First is the decision to become one. Any pharmacy student who is morally opposed to a current medication should in fact change his/her court of study. A current pharmacist who works for a corporate chain, should, since most chains have more than 1 on staff have the right to refuse any drug that is currently non-existent but will come out during her/his carreer for any reason as long as another staff member can provide the service. Here is the part that most posters aren’t getting: There are independent business owners who are pharmacists or whose businesses dispense drugs. These owner have the right to not sell any product, whether that is birth control due to moral reasons, or Transformers on the toy aisle, because she thinks Michael Bay can’t direct, or diapers, because he doesn’t want babies in his store. When comparing this driver to a pharmacist it is not necessarily a valid comparison, because we could be talking about private business, a corporate business, or a government institution like the VA, and each has different obligations under the law
Quick question … since this incident occurred in the USA, a thought occurs to me. Was the bus service in question in receipt of any government subsidy at all, or payment from government to provide a service?If so, then this joker was surely violating the Establishment Clause by refusing to provide the service he was employed to provide on religious grounds?
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I know I wouldn’t want to participate in, say, picking up the local church to drive them to the book burning festival. Atheist though I am, I would support your dismissal for that infraction. In other words, no, it is not reasonable accommodation to make.