RE: FW: 75% of Minneapolis airport taxis refusecustomerswithalco hol
Because of the Sabbath and Yom Kippur, I am just catching up with the threads of the past few days. I wanted to add a note to the discussion about the Muslim taxi drivers. There was a lot flying and I can't find the original posting describing exactly the system of color coded cabs, so forgive me if this precise point has been made. I am responding to the Greg Sisk thread that speaks most closely to my own views but wanted to lay out a more specific approach that I think captures his conceptual approach. Most of the other postings I read argue that, in this situation pitting the rights of Muslim employees against those passengers who carry alcohol, the law should favor one or the other in most or all situations. But a number of us have been arguing that in situations involving valid competing interests (e.g. the pharmacist or nurse with objections to certain prescriptions or provision of services) efforts should be made to better accommodate the interests on both sides. This is a variant of what Greg (and I think Eugene) was arguing for. In the case of the taxi drivers, if there is another taxi available at the time service needs to be provided, the religious objections should always be accommodated. But since provision of transportation is the essential function of the position the employer has been licensed to provide to the public, if there is no accessible alternative available, the taxi driver needs to provide the services. The notion, for example, that in a small town with half a dozen drivers, that in a snow storm, your elderly aunt could be left stranded (by a government licensed transportation provider) indefinitely or altogether after shopping, because she is carrying alcohol home, where the only drivers are of the color code for won't carry is deeply problematic. So, on the one hand, if someone won't perform the essential function of the job in those circumstances where they are the only accessible provider, they ought not to work in that profession or work in a locality where there are alternatives available. On the other, when someone is available to replace them, they always ought to be accommodated. In the same way, I would argue that pharmacists or nurses should always be accommodated when (in a pharmacy or hospital providing particular services) there are others to provide needed services but need to accept their responsibility to provide such services to which they object when no one else is available to provide them. (Hope the analogy doesn't stir another hornet's nest of debate :-)). This schema, of course, requires the kind of case by case analysis to which Greg referred in his posting (how long can reasonably someone be made to wait while a substitute is found and dispatched? Is referring them to another accessible provider who has fewer objectors a legitimate resolution?) But nonetheless this approach has the advantage of taking reasonable steps to accommodate the competing rights of both parties as fully as possible. At the risk of stepping over the boundaries our moderator set between legal and religious issues, I hope you will, in the words of the Jewish blessing, accept my best wishes for a Jewish new year of sweetness, peace and health for you and your loved ones. David -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sisk, Gregory C. Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 5:11 PM To: 'Law Religion issues for Law Academics' Subject: RE: FW: 75% of Minneapolis airport taxis refusecustomerswithalco hol To piggy-back on Eugene's point, such accommodation is not only wise public policy (in my view), but is wise employer behavior, not only to maintain higher morale but also to ensure higher quality of work. As an example, when I was an appellate lawyer at the Department of Justice, it was openly offered to us that should we have a strong moral or religious objection to working on a particular case, we should express it, would be released from the case, and this would have no detrimental effect on our review. I took advantage of that offer on only one occasion, when the government (as I recall the matter from many years later) was objecting to a religious seminary's refusal on religious grounds to accept a returning student who had interrupted his religious training for military service. In my view, this offended the seminary's religious liberty and I was morally unwilling to cooperate with the government in that intrusion. As former Judge Patricia Wald of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit commented on this very policy: With changes in administrations, many government counsel understand that, at least in DOJ, lawyers are not required, at the peril of ending their careers, to represent government policy that collides with their most fundamental beliefs. (The don't ask, don't tell policy on gays in the military is one example, I am told, where lawyers sincerely opposed to the policy are
RE: Victory for Military Chaplains Who Pray In Jesus Name
I think Martys Point 2 is slightly overbroad. Chaplains do not have the right to pray as they wish when carrying out duties outside the conduct of regular voluntary worship services. I doubt that anyone believes that the military can tell a rabbi or priest or pastor what is an acceptable regular worship service (i.e. a Latin or vernacular mass. In the entire dispute over the Air Force guidelines, no one has contended- or at least no one serious has contended that the ban on praying in Jesus name, for example, applies to weekly services. Marc Stern From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 5:50 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Victory for Military Chaplains Who Pray In Jesus Name Chaplain Klingenschmitt: With all due respect, this is simple nonsense. 1. Section 6031 does not say that military chaplains may pray in Jesus's name, and if it did authorize such prayers in the chaplains' official capacities, it would almost certainly violate the Establishment Clause in that respect. 2. For reasons we've discussed at great length before, chaplains have no Free Exercise rights to pray in the manner of their choosing when they are acting in their official capacities. 3. Citing Lee v. Weisman, and only Lee v. Weisman, for the proposition that the state must permit a state employee to give a sectarian prayer in a public capacity, is just about the most absurd reading of a case that I've ever seen. - Original Message - From: Gordon James Klingenschmitt To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: Re: Victory for Military Chaplains Who Pray In Jesus Name Ah yes, Marty, the House receded, but so did these (novel, invasive)Feb 2006 policies recede into oblivion,allowing the real power of the oldlaw (enshrined since 1860) to befully restored: THE LAW, GENTLEMEN: US CODE TITLE 10 SECTION 6031: An officer in the chaplain corps may conduct public worship according to the manner and forms of the church of which he is a member. And the U.S.Supreme Court disagrees with your interpretation, that allowing freedom in prayer content would somehow violate the establishment clause, in fact they ruled the opposite: 1991 Lee vs. Weisman (Majority Decision): The government may not establish an official or civic religion as a means of avoiding the establishment of a religion with more specific creeds...The State's role did not end with the decision to include a prayer and with the choice of clergyman. Principal Lee provided Rabbi Gutterman with a copy of the Guidelines for Civic Occasions and advised him that his prayers should be nonsectarian. Through these means, the principal directed and controlled the content of the prayers. Even if the only sanction for ignoring the instructions were that the rabbi would not be invited back, we think no religious representative who valued his or her continued reputation and effectiveness in the community would incur the State's displeasure in this regard. It is a cornerstone principle of our Establishment Clause jurisprudence that it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government, Engel v. Vitale, (1962), and that is what the school officials attempted to do. So Marty is technically wrong on both counts: 1) There is a long-standinglaw to let military chaplains pray in Jesus name, and 2) Government censorship ofanyone's prayer contentviolates the First Amendment (unless you disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court). Smile guys...liberty is prevailing here! You still believe in freedom of speech, don't you? Chaplain Klingenschmitt Marty Lederman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's actually rather amusing. The House -- which passed a bill that would have prescribed that chaplains would have the prerogative to pray according to the dictates of their conscience -- actually receded inconference. That is to say, the Senate conferees prevailed, and therefore the law contains no such prescription. But then the conferees purport to driect the Secretary of the Air Force to rescind the recent policy. This is not a direction of Congress, let alone a duly enacted law, and it has no operative legal effect. Besides which, for the chaplains in their official capacities to engage in public prayer in Jesus's name would violate the Establishment Clause, and thus could not be prescribed, even by statute. Do you Yahoo!? Get on board. You're invited to try the new Yahoo! Mail. ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To
Decision in Wisconsin State Employee Charitable Campaign Case
I thought list members might be interested in knowing that a federal district in Wisconsin held last Friday that state officials violated the Constitution by denying certain religious charities access to their state employee charitable campaign. Access to the campaign was conditioned on compliance with a rule banning religious discrimination in choosing employees and members of the governing board. The case is Association of Faith-Based Organizations v. Bablitch, W.D. Wis No. 06-C-175-S. The opinion is online at http://www.wiwd.uscourts.gov/bcgi-bin/opinions/district_opinions/C/06/06-C-1 75-S-09-29-06.PDF. The court held that it was unreasonable under the circumstances for Wisconsin to exclude these religious charities from the campaign. The court distinguished the Second Circuit's decision in Boy Scouts v. Wyman. My organization represents the plaintiff in the case. Greg Baylor Gregory S. Baylor Director, Center for Law Religious Freedom Christian Legal Society 8001 Braddock Road, Suite 300 Springfield, VA 22151 (703) 642-1070 x 3502 (703) 642-1075 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.clsnet.org ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
