Offended Cabbies Cry Intolerance

Okay, let’s say you fly into Minneapolis-St. Paul. Let’s say you’re carrying alcohol — rum from the Caribbean, a Merlot you found in Napa Valley. Let’s say you try to hail a cab while carrying said alcohol.

Good luck. You’re going to need it.

Three-quarters of the drivers serving the airport are Muslims, most from Somalia, and in recent years, many have refused to carry passengers carrying alcohol because Islam frowns on liquor.

Muslims claim that they want to assimilate, but in reality they don't. It's the same old story...ISLAMIC INTOLERANCE.

Dozens of passengers have reportedly been left stranded. Occasionally, even blind people using Seeing Eye dogs have been refused passage by drivers citing Islamic teachings that the saliva of dogs is unclean. Unclean? Personally, I would rather ride with the seeing eye dog any day.

Refusing fares from blind people with seeing eye dogs is a clear violation of the law, but as yet, no prosecutions.

Discriminating against the handicapped obviously is considered a minor offense, at least when compared to discriminating against Muslims.

After simmering for years, the issue has come to a boil. The metropolitan airport commission scheduled a public hearing to discuss stiffening penalties for the wayward cabbies.

As things now stand, a driver who refuses to carry you and your booze has to go back to the end of the cab line and wait hours for another fare. According to a report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, new rules have been proposed that would require a 30-day suspension for a first offense and revocation of a cabbie’s airport license for two years after the second.

That's not good enough. Immediate termination for those who refuse to carry Americans with legal alcoholic products and criminal prosecution for those who refuse seeing eye dogs.

Sounds good to me, but Khalid Elmasry disagrees. He’s spokesman for a group called the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. Here’s the MASM’s idea: Color code the taxis according to whether the drivers accept alcohol.

Great...another Islamic group seeking special privileges for Muslims. Will it ever stop?

"We will not see this perfect solution,” wrote Elmasry last week in USA Today, “even though it meets everyone’s needs. In an environment of fear and misunderstanding of everything Muslim, tolerance has become too much to ask."

Notice who Elmasry has labeled intolerant? Not the Muslim drivers but the American passengers who are being refused. Wouldn't it be better if the Muslim drivers just did their damn job? Is that too much to ask?

This is a group of men who refuse to do their jobs because of a perceived conflict with their religious beliefs. You’re entitled to your religious beliefs. You’re not entitled to require your employer or customers to go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate those beliefs.

Why is it that Muslims have the hardest time comprehending this? Why is it that Americans must go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate their beliefs? Let them drive their cabs back in Baghdad where these conflicts wouldn't exist.

And what’s next? Will the drivers refuse to serve homosexuals or Jews or women without veils? Will they decline to ferry a customer to a bar or barbecue joint? Will we let everybody in every profession reject any customer whose race, culture, religion or moral choices offend?

No. Because that is anathema to this nation’s ideals. And the sooner certain Muslim cabbies understand that, the better.

You want a “perfect solution”? Fine, here it is: Muslim cabbies should do their jobs. Period.