The state may well choose to accommodate things for which the
constitution does not compel accommodation.
Is it the religious motive of the driver that matters? Or the
conduct of the passenger? Can these taxi drivers discriminate
against all those who drink alcohol? For that matter,
Human beings are not generic round pegs that are carefully shaved down to a
uniform size on a lathe so as to fit perfectly into every round hole. When
society, through the force of law, demands that everyone be the same and
behave the same, demanding that people surrender their deeply-held
Hard to imagine how telling a cab driver to pick up a passenger shaves
down the person's faith.
Let's try it another way: suppose devoutly Muslim (or Jewish) men
drave susbtantial numbers of cabs and refuse to pick up fares of women
who are not modestly dressed. No shorts or short skirts? Are
It's only hard to imagine that telling a Muslim cab driver to knowingly
assist someone in transporting alcohol could be a burden on faith if you're
unwilling to put yourself, even for a moment, in that person's shoes and
consider the matter from the point of view of the believer involved, rather
AlthoughCongress didn't pass new legislation,they did order SECNAV and SECAF to rescind their recent (illegal) policies that required "non-sectarian" prayersso the controversial Air Force Guidelines (and Navy policy) are now TOTALLY RESCINDED, and military chaplains are free to pray "in Jesus
Greg's analysis seems entirely right to me. To add just one
item, would we respond to religious requests for days off with You were
hired to do a job Tuesday to Saturday, do it? Say that taxicabs were
expected to be on duty Monday through Friday until 10 pm, and someone
asked for an
And a loss for all sailors and soldiers and member of the air force who
will feel excluded and shut out by people like Cap. Klingenschmitt and
his ilk who cannot understand the difference between their role as
officers in relationship to all members of the armed forces, and their
personal needs to
I had thought that, where constitutional accommodations are
involved, Thomas v. Review Bd. had settled the matter: It's not up to
the government to decide whether beliefs are internally consistent, or
whether they are shared by all of the claimant's ostensible
coreligionists. Nor is it
Nor do I and nor did I so claim.
On 9/30/06, Volokh, Eugene [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I had thought that, where constitutional accommodations are
involved, Thomas v. Review Bd. had settled the matter: It's not up to
the government to decide whether beliefs are internally consistent, or
Paul's distinction doesn't hold up. Part of doing the job is doing it on
the days assigned to work. It is just as sensible to define the job of
being a cab driver as accepting assignments on equal terms with other
employees to work on Saturday, as it is to define it as picking up every
fare at
Well, we started with people hired to do a job, should do it.
Now we're at people hired to do a job, should do it on the days that
they are willing to do it, even though they can get an exemption from
the schedule the job usually required. Why not have an alternative
vision -- people
Hmm -- then why bring up the supposed arbitrariness,
idiosyncracy, or inconsistency of the taxi drivers' beliefs?
Eugene
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steven Jamar
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 1:25 PM
To:
(1) The fact that we limit businesspeople's freedom of choice
when it comes to discriminating against customers based on race,
religion, sex, and so on doesn't mean that we ought to limit it as to
everything else.
(2) In particular, I don't know of any rules that bar Muslim
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
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
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
I decided to take a quick look over at section
6031. Subsection (a), which Chaplain Klingenschmitt quotes, does not
provide that chaplains may "pray in Jesus's name" as part of their public
services. It's much more modest, and not very
objectionable.Subsections (b) and (c), on the
Disclaimer: Any views expressed below are my
own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Department of
the Navy or the Navy Chaplain Corps.
Professors,
If the agreement to remove the "Military Chaplains
Prayer Law" from the National Defense Authorization Act resulted
Perhaps Marty's right about one thing...our modern "enlightened" reading of the Constitution has (sadly) evolved quite a distance from when the founding fathers wrote that beloved document. Here is theorigin ofthatportion of10 USC 6031 (which Marty quoted, but hated) as firstwritten by our
Washington was also careful about his orders -- notice that the law does not specify which "divine service." The law was partly to smooth the religious strife that was feared between units from New England and units from Virginia, and units from Maryland, and units from Pennsylvania -- all of
It seems there is a distinction between Divine/Religious Services and other
command functions. I don't suppose Marty is saying that a chaplain may not
pray in Jesus' name during Divine/Relgious Services. Paragraph 6(c) does not
require that Divine/Religious Services be non-sectarian but only
Excellent comment Professor Scarberry, But now that the policy is rescinded, so is any distinction between "public worship at divine services" and "public worship at command ceremonies" and so the law (once again) protects the chaplain at all events whenever he prays...prayer itself is
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