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http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/05/travel/muslim-flight-attendant-feat/index.html

I am just curious what everyone thinks about this. Should your religious beliefs really affect your job that much or is this a case where the woman applied for a job where she knew she couldn't fulfill the duties due to her religious beliefs.

on another note, where in the Koran does it say muslims are not allowed to sell/serve booze? because having visited a few muslim/islamic countries in my time I have bought large quantities of booze with no problem

also I apologize for using CNN as a source....

Certain types of booze are forbidden for Muslims to consume, but I wasn't aware they were forbidden to sell or distribute it.

If the job isn't a government job, then yes they would have to exempt her from that duty. However, as that is a special consideration, I think she'd be required to disclose it. (Not her specific religion, only that she has moral proscriptions forbidding her from performing certain aspects of her job.)

A job must attempt to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs when possible. I'm not sure what happened because it seems like such a reasonable accommodation had been made, and then the airline changed their mind.

It'll be interesting to see how this gets handled since a that clerk got jailed for refusing to issue marriage liscenses because it violated her religious beliefs and companies who said their religious beliefs were being violated were forced into providing birth control measures.
I imagine the court will go against this person, but if they don't, it could open another huge can of worms.

Relapse wrote:
It'll be interesting to see how this gets handled since a that clerk got jailed for refusing to issue marriage liscenses because it violated her religious beliefs and companies who said their religious beliefs were being violated were forced into providing birth control measures.
I imagine the court will go against this person, but if they don't, it could open another huge can of worms.

Well, the woman in question works for the government and the government made the ruling so she either has to follow that rule or be ...well fired, not sure why they put her in jail that seems both cruel and unusual when a simple pink slip would have worked.

The Courts ruled in favor of the Hobby Shop, saying they did not have to provide birth control to employees.

This one is a bit trickier, and I believe the issue came up because the other employees got tired of doing part of her job for her because she didn't feel like serving booze to people

It'll be interesting to see how this gets handled since a that clerk got jailed for refusing to issue marriage liscenses because it violated her religious beliefs and prevented anyone else from doing so either.

I have expanded on the above post above to indicate what I feel was omitted; because that is the crux of the issue. The issue wasn't that Kim Davis wouldn't issue licenses, it was that shes also would not let any of her staff do so either, and so de facto was depriving the population of her jurisdiction from their rights under the law. She's in jail because she has been found in contempt. She can leave any time she wants to reach a reasonable accommodation that allows the people in her jurisdiction to exercise their rights.


TLDR, she's not in trouble for exercising her religion, she's in trouble for using her state-backed office to force other people to exercise her religion. That should be repellent to liberal and conservative equally.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
not sure why they put her in jail that seems both cruel and unusual when a simple pink slip would have worked.

She is an elected official, so cannot simply be fired. She can only be removed by the legislature, and only when they are in session (not until January).

 Ouze wrote:
A job must attempt to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs when possible. I'm not sure what happened because it seems like such a reasonable accommodation had been made, and then the airline changed their mind.

Another employee complained about not only doing her job for her, but a few other things as well.

If your job is to give people booze and pork, and you can't, then maybe you need to find a new job.

On the other hand, the company removed her "accommodation" and suspended her in one stroke, not even giving her a chance to either do her job or make her stand.


Crappy all around.

Ouse, You just wrecked any further discourse I care to have with you by your rudeness. You could have just as easily made your point without altering my words.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
A job must attempt to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs when possible. I'm not sure what happened because it seems like such a reasonable accommodation had been made, and then the airline changed their mind.

Another employee complained about not only doing her job for her, but a few other things as well.

If your job is to give people booze and pork, and you can't, then maybe you need to find a new job.

On the other hand, the company removed her "accommodation" and suspended her in one stroke, not even giving her a chance to either do her job or make her stand.


Crappy all around.

I've had to deal with people like this woman who claimed something or the other in order to get out of doing their job, forcing others to have to do their work. Nine times out of ten when it was looked into it was a scam in order to sluff work, get attention, or some other item. In the meantime, morale among the other employees went down and production suffered until things could be dealt with.

I've edited the post to make it clearer, and meant no offense.

Relapse wrote:


I've had to deal with people like this woman who claimed something or the other in order to get out of doing their job, forcing others to have to do their work. Nine times out of ten when it was looked into it was a scam in order to sluff work, get attention, or some other item. In the meantime, morale among the other employees went down and production suffered until things could be dealt with.

As have I. (worked at a Wawa in Va. with a Muslim, but he was fine with selling beer after having his job threatened)
They legally have to attempt an accommodation. Attempt they did. But they messed up the dismount, and it opened the door for legal trouble. If they had simply revoked her accommodation and her her dig her hole (or do her job), we wouldn't be reading this on the news, much less talking about it here


EDIT: Really need to give up on this tablet

on a related note how do you all feel about the army trying to accommodate muslims/sihks by letting them wear religious headgear while in uniform. similar to the current topic but in this case i thin it has a bit more importance then not getting your whiskey rye on an airplane

I have no problem with religious headwear in that context. It doesn't hurt the compelling interests of the business.

Wait, I misread that - I didn't realize it was asking about the army. I don't think I'm qualified to answer that. I'm not sure how wearing a turban would affect someone in combat... how do Sikhs do it?

In any event, the government might be able to make a case that their need for unit cohesion outweighs their rights to their visible religious observation.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
on a related note how do you all feel about the army trying to accommodate muslims/sihks by letting them wear religious headgear while in uniform. similar to the current topic but in this case i thin it has a bit more importance then not getting your whiskey rye on an airplane

Feth that. You wear that uniform, and only that uniform. No special headwear for religion. The more "special" that they allow soldiers to be, the weaker they make the military. It's not about being a special snowflake, its about being one unit.

CNN Article wrote:It seemed to be working out until another flight attendant filed a complaint against Stanley on August 2 claiming she was not fulfilling her duties by refusing to serve alcohol, Masri said. The employee complaint also said Stanley had a book with "foreign writings" and wore a headdress.

Damn you, CNN article, now I want to read the employee complaint. I sense gold in them sentences.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:
on a related note how do you all feel about the army trying to accommodate muslims/sihks by letting them wear religious headgear while in uniform. similar to the current topic but in this case i thin it has a bit more importance then not getting your whiskey rye on an airplane

Feth that. You wear that uniform, and only that uniform. No special headwear for religion. The more "special" that they allow soldiers to be, the weaker they make the military. It's not about being a special snowflake, its about being one unit.

Religious headgear can be made part of the uniform however. If you can have priests in the army, you can have someone with a minor uniform alteration.

It is not like the armed forces of places like India have to turn away a large number of recruits because they wear a turban...

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:
on a related note how do you all feel about the army trying to accommodate muslims/sihks by letting them wear religious headgear while in uniform. similar to the current topic but in this case i thin it has a bit more importance then not getting your whiskey rye on an airplane

Feth that. You wear that uniform, and only that uniform. No special headwear for religion. The more "special" that they allow soldiers to be, the weaker they make the military. It's not about being a special snowflake, its about being one unit.

Religious headgear can be made part of the uniform however. If you can have priests in the army, you can have someone with a minor uniform alteration.

It is not like the armed forces of places like India have to turn away a large number of recruits because they wear a turban...

the military made a special exemption for priests/rabbi's/mullahs whatever. They are allowed to wear religious items and only when actually performing their job. Otherwise they are to wear the proper uniform of the day.

I thought Sikhs have been able to wear their headgear sense 1919? Either way as long as it is the correct color/pattern it made no difference to me. I don't see it as 'special snowflakism' I see it as allowing more people to participate in being a part of the US and being able to defend it without sacrificing their religious beliefs.

Well, it was the clerks job give out licenses, she had nothing else to do. She refused to do her job.
Here, she can do other things, there are more attendents then just one. so she could have easily been given the food run duty rather than serve booze.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Well, it was the clerks job give out licenses, she had nothing else to do. She refused to do her job.
Here, she can do other things, there are more attendents then just one. so she could have easily been given the food run duty rather than serve booze.


...

Exactly right. That is what the airline did for two months until another flight attendant made what appears to be a religiously discriminatory complaint.

The airline would have been within its rights to insist that flight attendants serve alcohol as a normal part of their duties, but once they made an accommodation (which was a perfectly reasonable thing to do IMO) they should not have withdrawn it without serious consideration.

But the airline didn't explicitly accommodate the attendant, it basically said "Figure it out with your coworkers, we don't care."

hotsauceman, consider how your post could appear insulting to anyone who is a member of a military/has someone in the military dear to them. Also consider how it could be considered flamebaiting given the thread wasn't ever heading that direction. Then consider editing it. And by consider I mean do it, or I will edit it and more.

I think the problem in cases such as this is whether you want to recognise a real difference between religious beliefs and personal attitudes. What makes personal beliefs become religious beliefs that get discrimination protection? Is it just lots more people believing the same thing? There are loads of peculiar sects and cults around, do all their weird rules get exemption too?? Then there's all the people who claim its part of their religion when it's something up for debate, or cultural not in core religious texts. At some point it isn't religious instruction but personal pickiness.

Every time a case like this goes to court you end up having to decide if what they say really counts as their religion and then if it's something reasonable or not which is a can of worms.

The problem is giving religious beliefs a higher status than personal beliefs. Why do my moral principles get less protection because I'm an atheist than a religious persons principles? They're not less important to me because I don't believe in God. The line between what an employee can ask or refuse to do should be the same for everyone. If they agree this woman can refuse to serve alchohol because of their religion then everyone should be able to refuse if they don't want to. I don't believe that religion should get special access to privileges on the basis that religion has some intrinsic value that makes it more important. And myself, I can actually see good reason not to serve alchohol on plains or trains, I've seen enough people drink too much and become obnoxious on public transport that I think it's best to avoid it.

You claim that your religion stops you from selling alcohol but then go for a job that includes selling alcohol?

This line of thinking says a lot more about the employee and her mental state than the problem of religious freedom.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
on a related note how do you all feel about the army trying to accommodate muslims/sihks by letting them wear religious headgear while in uniform. similar to the current topic but in this case i thin it has a bit more importance then not getting your whiskey rye on an airplane

The rules for employment in the military are no different from employment in civilian life. An employer must be accommodating to an employee's (or future employee's) religious beliefs, provided those beliefs don't place an undue burden on the employer. In the case of headdress in the military it is very easy to accommodate turbans and the like, but a burka could be argued to be a burden and so not allowed.

In the case in the OP, the airline would have to show that they made efforts to move the stewardess to a position where her beliefs would not be a burden. So they could have moved her to flights that don't serve alcohol or to large flights with enough cabin staff to cover her. If they offered her these accommodations and she refused then it's her tough cheese. If the airline didn't make these efforts then they are screwed.
Alternately if the airline can prove it would be unable to accommodate her without being an undue burden on themselves then they should have paid her off and made her redundant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
You claim that your religion stops you from selling alcohol but then go for a job that includes selling alcohol?

The article says she converted to Islam after she was employed.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
on a related note how do you all feel about the army trying to accommodate muslims/sihks by letting them wear religious headgear while in uniform. similar to the current topic but in this case i thin it has a bit more importance then not getting your whiskey rye on an airplane

Depends. Does it inhibit safety from combat headgear? Do they take it off as a sign of respect when entering a building/put it on whenever they go outside? Or do they wear proper issue military headgear overtop?
I work weekends at national guard facilities. Their caps are mandatorily removed upon entering a building and must be worn whenever outside. Everyone doing it is a sign of equality and of course following the rules. If the Muslim soldiers are wearing religious gear under their military issued gear, absolutely. And I would feel they don't have to take it off when entering a building. If they are wearing it in replacement of a military cap, then they should treat it as a military hat: matching camo and take it off when entering a building, put it back on when going outside. And it's a moot point if it gets in the way of protective helmets-if a protective helmet can't be worn in combat situations due to size of the religious gear, make room for the safety gear.

Edit. A mistake

This is a bit of a conundrum for me.

I certainly understand that religious beliefs need to be reasonably accounted for up to a certain extent.
At the same time, I dislike it when this accommodation ends causing other people more work.

For smaller Domestic flights, I could see this not being an issue. Larger Domestic flights and International flights it would really put an undue amount of work on whoever is picking up the slack, and I don’t think that would be fair or reasonable.

First of all, I'm confused about what topic we're talking about here, as I'm not really sure what points to address. Is it about the flight attendant's complaint? Religious accommodations in the military? Or that Kentucky clerk?

To address the original post and its linked news story: from reading the article, it looks like the her supervisor simply told her to work it out with her co-workers, essentially washing his hands of the matter and putting it back on her. And, eventually, one of her co-workers complained, and then the airline revoked an accommodation that it really didn't make in the first place.

So what should the airline's reasonable accommodation be? When this part of her duties were taken up by others, did she take on some of their duties to balance it out, or was she just "dumping" her work on them?

And, here's the kicker, she was already doing this job before she converted to Islam. So it wasn't against her religious beliefs before, and then now it is. How does an employer react to that? Should there be a burden on the individual to take such things into account before converting to a new faith?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Should there be a burden on the individual to take such things into account before converting to a new faith?

Changing your faith is your personal decision alone and noone may ask you to not believe in anything you want to believe - it's one of the fundamental rights everyone has. Now - this doesn't free you from any and each consequence such a decision bears. It's the part of freedom people usually don't like - you are free to do whatever you want as long as you are ready to live with the consequences. In this very case, her job is influenced by her faith. She is given a task, or rather a set of tasks, she needs to fulfill. MUST fulfill. If she doesn't think that she's able to do so, she should first contact her employer and he should offer a solution. After all, you must not be discriminated for your belief / faith. In this very case, that would be to ask her co-workers if they would be willing to cover her shortcomings. Emphasis on ASK. Noone should feel being forced to cover up for her. If her co-workers cannot or do not want to take over and she is not willing to carry out the job, then she cannot fulfill the minimum required criteria to do the job and thus her employer should dismiss her following all legal obligations.

 Sasori wrote:
This is a bit of a conundrum for me.

I certainly understand that religious beliefs need to be reasonably accounted for up to a certain extent.
At the same time, I dislike it when this accommodation ends causing other people more work.

For smaller Domestic flights, I could see this not being an issue. Larger Domestic flights and International flights it would really put an undue amount of work on whoever is picking up the slack, and I don’t think that would be fair or reasonable.

It really kills morale and causes bad feelings over time if it's like any other place I've worked. In the short term, most people don't mind picking up the slack for a co worker because it's one of those, it can happen to any of us" kind of things. It's when it looks like it's going to be a permanent feature that starts pissing people off and damaging the work enviornment.