A minor issue at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) has potentially major implications for the future of Islam in the United States. Starting about a decade ago, some Muslim taxi drivers serving the airport declared, that they would not transport passengers visibly carrying alcohol... Muslim taxi drivers asked the Metropolitan Airports Commission for permission to refuse passengers carrying liquor...
MAC proposed a pragmatic solution: drivers unwilling to carry alcohol could get a special color light on their car roofs, signaling their views on alcohol to taxi starters and customers alike. From the airport's point of view, this scheme offers a sensible and efficient mechanism to resolve a minor irritant, leaving no passenger insulted and no driver losing business.
[T]he proposed solution has massive and worrisome implications. Namely, the two-light plan intrudes the Shari'a, or Islamic law, with state sanction, into a mundane commercial transaction in Minnesota. A government authority thus sanctions a signal as to who does or does not follow Islamic law.
What of taxi drivers beyond those at MSP? Other Muslims in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the country could well demand the same privilege. Bus conductors might follow suit.
Why stop with alcohol? Muslim taxi drivers in several countries already balk at allowing seeing-eye dogs in their cars. Future demands could include not transporting women with exposed arms or hair, homosexuals, and unmarried couples. For that matter, they could ban men wearing kippas...
It is precisely the innocuous nature of the two-light taxi solution that makes it so insidious - and why the Metropolitan Airports Commission should reconsider its wrong-headed decision. Readers who wish to make their views known to the MAC can write it at publicaffairs@mspmac.org.
[New York Sun]
UPDATED: Good news!
No Islamic Law in Minnesota, for Now - by Daniel Pipes
For now, taxi drivers who refuse fares so as to avoid transporting alcohol will continue, as has been the case, to forfeit their place in the airport taxi queue and must return to the back of the line, in keeping with a MAC ordinance. But the Free Muslims Coalition correctly argues that this does not suffice. Cab drivers who discriminate against passengers with bottles of alcohol, it holds, "should be banned altogether from picking up passengers at the airport" and their hack permits should be cancelled.
Exactly. Islamists need to understand that the Constitution rules in the United States, not Shari'a, and Americans will vigorously ensure that it continues to do so.
[FrontPageMagazine.com]
3 comments:
It seems that if you try, someone can find something to worry about almost anywhere. I wouldn;t think muslims today would want a light on that signalled who they are, but if they want it.... Cabbies alreday pick and choose just by not pulling over if they do not like the way someone appears. If they want to give up a fair so easily for their beliefs, so be it. Bus drivers are not independent businessmen and their will be limits to what others can do, but if muslims want to start excluding themselves from doing business it is not state sponsoring to allow them to do this. It also doesn't seem like a good idea for them, but that is up to them.
I am going to look into the Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury story only because I don;t know what part of the Wall Street Journal it appeared in and their opinions and editorials are notoriously slanted and inaccurate.
Finally, North Korea proves nothing of the sort. It only proves what can happen when you have China and Russia sponsoring you and protecting you from full fledged sanctions. Thus, in the real world it will take more skills. It takes clever and strong negotiation tactics, diplomacy and credibility--something America is in short supply right now. Iraq is a perfect example (pre-war, that is) of how well all those methods can work when the world is united. A lesson we need China and Russia to learn as they attempt to thwart us in some areas, but our poor foresight and heavy handedness have thwarted us equally.
A cabbie should then suffer the consequences of thier economic/religious decision. Asking a government agency to grant special accomodations for Islamic law is foolish, and a move that has no precedent for other groups.
On North Korea, Clinton offered the [now nuclear] head of state a basketball signed by a famous player as well as other silly attempts appease and beg a change in policy. The Dems can claim no success with this either. Neither party has yet committed to pushing military options, or its diplomatic equivalent...
It has not been proven that North Korea abandoned its agreements with the Clinton administration though it is widely believed to be the caser. Knowing this, it makes even less sense how it has been handled the last six years. If an administration tried something and it didn't work, do you try even less?
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