I can bring home the bacon — well, maybe not

March 17, 2007

Guest Post by Morbo

In my continuing effort to keep readers up to date on mundane things religious fanatics will not do, I present this story from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune about Muslim store clerks who refuse to ring up packages of bacon.

Hey, I’m not making this stuff up. First evangelical Christian and conservative Catholic pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for birth control or “Plan B” pills. Then Muslim cabbies at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport refused to serve passengers carrying bottles of liquor. Now store clerks are scrutinizing our purchases, looking for anything that offends their faith.

The United States is a place of great religious freedom, and I love that. Worship one god, 20 or none. Wear a crazy hat. Dance and sing. Enjoy communion with your friends. Speak in tongues. Knock yourself out. I really don’t care.

But understand the limits. I realize that devout Muslims do not eat bacon. Anyone who tries to force or trick a Muslim into eating a piece of bacon is a boor and a lout. But we need some sensible ground rules here, folks. I know that some Muslims don’t want to even touch bacon. Fair enough. Don’t touch it. Bacon sold in stores comes in a plastic wrap. Thus, no Muslim is being forced to touch bacon. They may be required to touch, briefly, a piece of plastic wrapped around some bacon. It is not too much to ask. If rubber gloves will help, I’m for issuing them rubber gloves.

Every time I write about this issue, I make up absurd scenarios that could happen if retailers cave in to religious demands like this — at least I think they are ridiculous. Then something like this comes along, and I am convinced that the situation is beyond parody.

But let’s try some anyway.

The religious tradition of Jainism, which traces it roots to ancient India, opposes all forms of cruelty. Jains are vegetarians. So if the clerk at your supermarket is a Jain, none of your meat gets rung up. Furthermore, some Jains refuse to eat root vegetables, believing that uprooting an entire plant is destructive. No carrots and sweet potatoes for you.

Want to read the latest steamy novel by Jackie Collins? Too bad! The clerk at Border’s is a Southern Baptist. Would you please go get something by Dr. James Dobson instead?

Eager to get across town to spend a night of passion with your significant other, to whom you are not married? Better hope the bus driver, who is orthodox Catholic and does not approve of sex outside of marriage, doesn’t overhear your plans on that cell phone! He’ll bounce your butt right out.

Yes, of course you have religious freedom. Enjoy it. It’s what part of what makes the country so great. But understand this: Your right to religious freedom does not give you the right to run another person’s life or impose your particular theological quirks on the general public. In other words, RING UP THE DAMN BACON.

Makes you wonder why free market conservatives don’t pick more fights with religious conservatives.

  • “we need some sensible ground rules here”

    Here’s a rule: this being a free country, ring up the sale and keep your goddam religion to yourself.

  • Lots of stuff offend me especially if I walk around the theology section of a bookstore (being an atheist and all.) But do I yell at people who buy religious books? Of course not because I keep my views private and as long as others don’t get in my face then I won’t get in theirs.

    If they’re so damned concerned about keeping themselves pure then they should be stuck in a tent somewhere in the North Africa/ Med area without any of the modern “conveniences” as none of them are possible without “sinful” science. Even geography isn’t their friend as North America isn’t mentioned in the bible.

  • I don’t understand how they even got to the point of not ringing up bacon in the first place. If these people own the stores, then they should simply not carry bacon. If they are merely clerks, then why haven’t they been fired. If I refused to sell something to someone simply because I was morally or religiously opposed to it, he’d kick my butt out quicker than I can blink.

  • if you don’t want to do a part of your job on religious grounds, FIND ANOTHER FUCKING JOB!

  • I remember Blue Laws in the South. On Sundays about 50% of the items in a drugstore were banned from being sold. I never could quite figure out the theme. You could buy cigarettes but not shampoo and crazy stuff like that. Not to mention beer.

  • It’s stories like this that make one realize what a crock Fundamentalist Mohammedanism is (as opposed to actual Islam). Maybe we should grab a few of these morons and ask them whether they want to go back to the antpile they came from. They seem to have very little idea of the fact they aren’t in Somalia anymore.

  • Hey, look at the bright side. At least these cashiers are allowing the people to purchase the bacon, unlike the pharmacists who refuse to even let people buy the ‘morning-after’ pill…

  • Hey, they don’t want to ring it up? I’ll take it for free, thanks.

    I wonder if Muslims are like Jews, ie the religion makes exceptions for extreme circumstances. You can’t, for example, eat pork but, if someone is standing over you with a gun and says “eat it or I’ll shoot” , it’s OK and no sin. Perhaps we should use the 2nd Amendment (from the previous post) and carry our guns into those “won’t ring up bacon” stores?

  • It’s funny how fundy Muslims bash Jews but have most of the same rules and regulations. There’s a reason for this, but it’s too dangerous to mention when you’re dealing with fanatics.

  • I’ve always felt that pharmacists do indeed have a moral right to deny prescriptions they find offensive, but that this right does not apply to the pharmacy itself. Thus, if there is ever a time when there is on duty a pharmacist who will not fill such a prescription, then the pharmacy would be required to also have on duty a pharmacist who will fill it.

    This could get expensive for the pharmacy, but so be it. Freedom can have consequences.

    Same with the clerk in the convenience store. Hire two clerks. This will affect the marketability of such “moral” pharmacists and clerks. Again, consequences of their so called “morality”.

    I put morality in quotes because often these so called moralists don’t know the first thing about the true teachings of their religions. 72 virgins? Larry Craig?

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