Do Your Job Or Quit – It Really Is That Simple
Another round of ‘oh woe is me I’m being persecuted for my faith” is hitting the media – my sympathy levels are low, as a matter of fact they are non-existent.
If the Saskatchewan government get its way, certain public employees, whose salaries are paid by the residents of Saskatchewan, will be able to refuse to serve you if you’re gay.
It seems pretty clear to me, if you are a public servant your job is to serve the public, if your religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job then find another one.
If my spiritual beliefs (or even my political ideology) got in the way of my doing my job I would expect to be told that my services were no longer needed, handed a pink slip, and escorted to the door… indeed, I would be surprised if my employer did accommodate my beliefs, why should they?
Church ministers and priests and such are not public servants and therefore have every right to refuse to marry gay couples on religious principles – they serve a congregation, not the public.
Civil servants do not.
The ‘I’m not gonna perform my job on religious grounds‘ song and dance from civil servants is tiresome – tell them to do their job, and if they don’t, fire them.
[ h/t Dr Dawg ]
Amen to that.
I agree with you balbulican. Now let’s see what your response is to this one:
If a muslim in government refused to serve a man because he had a dog, would the same principles apply?
Balbulican hasn’t said anything, Raphael. Stageleft is a different person.
But since you ask, I agree with Stageleft. Acceptance of employment by a government, to me, implies a commitment to provide service to anyone entitled to that service. If you feel you cannot provide that service because it contravenes your religion, then don’t apply for the job in the first place, or find another job.
And of course that applies to Muslim public servants. Why on earth wouldn’t it? What scenario did you have in mind?
I was about to ask the same question. We’re talking, I assume, about working dogs and the taxi-cab scenario. Taxi drivers, as per their license, must take people with working dogs. Period. No exceptions.
Some time ago (and I believe the case came up here) some female Muslim medical students didn’t want to scrub for surgery because they’d have to show their bare arms. Fine, I said then–let them choose some other line of work.
My sympathies are with the public, who deserve equal treatment in service by government officials and by those who offer services to the public. No JWs have to work in blood clinics, no vegans have to work in slaughterhouses, no Jews or Muslims have to work on pig farms, and no anti-gay bigots have to work as marriage commissioners in the province of Saskatchewan.
Are we clear?
I’m sorry — how did we go from fundagelical, homophobic bigots allowing Brad Wall a backdoor attempt at “conscience” legislation to Muslims? Ah yes, because it’s alllllllllll about the scary brown people where “Raphael” is concerned.
Nice false equivalency, “Raph”, try not to hump it to death.
@LuLu: That’s easy Lulu, because the whole discussion is so much easier to deal with when those dark skinned foreigners and their foreign god are involved.
The simple fact is that civil servants, at whatever level, are paid to do a job and I don’t care what colour they are, what god they pray to, where they came from, what their political ideology is, or even what cloths they wear – they are paid to do a job, just exactly like you and me.
SSM is legal in Canada and that’s just one of the realities these people need to consider when they get up in the morning and go to work.
I tend to avoid these discussions with Raphael. I once suggested that the residents of Oxford should have the right to decide for themselves on whether muezzins should be permitted to recite the adhan from an Oxford mosque. This, in Raphael’s mind, represented a treacherous capitulation on my behalf to the slavering Muslim hordes who lurk in his broom closet; since then I have been one of the world’s leading apologists for Islamist terror.
Thank God I never admitted my fondness for Merguez.
Normally, I try to avoid the blatantly ignorant who spend their lives in a state of perpetual shrieking fear over the big bad “other”.
Since this is “Raphael”, the same person who sees ethnic malls as a sign of the encroaching brown horde, I’m sure you can understand my desire to take the occasional verbal kick.
Mmm…Lulu, I think you’re being unfair to Raph.
To be strictly accurate, I believe he saw ethnic malls as a sign of the encroaching Yellow Peril, not the Brown Horde.
Raises interesting questions about who’s gonna win, though. Like Alien Vs. Predator. Or will they simply turn into a kind of mixed Perilous Greenish Horde?
@balbulican – Perhaps, but then I’m sure it’s all the same sense of not-white oppression as far as “Raphael” is concerned.
Someone should challenge this (if Saskatchewan adopts this policy) by refusing to serve someone wearing a cross. Or a promise ring. Or wears clothing made of mixed fibers.
If some mischievious Sakatchewanian civil servant did that, the outrage would be something to watch.
They could even refuse to work on fridays of the in-house cafeteria is serving meat that day. They could refuse to serve anyone who got a divorce, lied, if they suspect the person seeking the service covets their neighbors wife, does not adequately respect their mother and father, or does not pray 5 times a day. They could even offer services only in ‘tongue’ (as in ’speaking in tongues’).
If I were a Saskatchewanian Civil Servant with some job security, I would jump all over this.
@LuLu – Get your facts straight. The discussion that time wasn’t about an encroaching “brown horde”, but the rise of ethnic Asian malls that were considered exclusionary to other cultures. And the person who conducted the study and reached these conclusions was an Asian-Canadian.
@stageleft – I wasn’t trying to change the debate into something else. I just wanted to make sure there was consistency in your viewpoint.
@balbulican – You oversimplify my viewpoints, but I agree the Oxford debate was regrettable. I haven’t changed my opinion on the matter, but I overstated my point. Since it’s a personal preference, neither of us were going to sway the other.
I provided a link to the discussion in question, Raphael ( a courtesy not often afforded me by the folks who accuse me of promoting Islamism, virulent anti semitism, and other fictions); readers are urged to review the original post and comments.
Oh, I’m sure reading that conversation will only confirm whatever prearrangement of thoughts people have for me already. I won’t equivocate about it. I got emotionally invested in the argument with the expected results.
Since we’ve dredged this up again, I still don’t have a difference of opinion on the matter, but I would make a concession. If the muezzin prayer is an inevitable part of our multicultural future in Canada, I would surrender those offensive church bells if it means we’d have some reasonable peace and quiet.
Hey, I work construction so I’m up at 6am, but as I understand it the first call to prayer is around 5am.
@Dr.Dawg: Sorry Dawg, generally when making comparrisions of this nature you have to compare like to like – private sector to public sector don’t work.
The private sector should be under no compulsion to provide their services to anyone, the public sector on the other hand, is.
The private sector should be under no compulsion to provide their services to anyone
I don’t know SL, try opening a business that serves whites only and see how far you get. We’ve already made it pretty clear that businesses, even private ones, have to treat everyone equally or wind up facing legal sanctions. Cab companies must provide services to the disabled, including allowing seeing eye dogs for the blind. Granted that doesn’t necessarily equate to every cab driver having to do so. I’m an atheist but happen to be allergic to dogs, so transporting them would be a problem for someone like myself without any religious overtones. So long as the company can provide the service, I personally shouldn’t have to.
Still, I agree that as a civil servant, rather than a private company’s employee, your duty is to serve all the public, your personal views notwithstanding. As noted elsewhere, if government employees can choose to ignore the laws and policies they are sworn to uphold, how can you expect anyone else to pay attention to them?
Is there a way that services can be given to everyone that also respects the religious beliefs of public employees?
@BJ: I agree with you that refusing to serve certain segments of the population is a dumb move if you want to (a) stay in business for long (b) make any money, but that’s not the question.
The question is should private business be compelled do do so?
Lets take the taxi driver Dr. Dawg mentioned – should he be compelled to provide a service to me? I don’t think so. It may p*ss me off if it happens but I happen to believe that a taxi driver, as a private business individual, has same right to refuse me service based on nothing more than he “doesn’t like the look of me” as I do to refuse to get into a cab based on the same thing.
If a private business is compelled to provide services to everyone does not make those services rights, just exactly like the right of same sex couples to get married by civil servants at the court house?
Do Canadians have the right to a taxi ride?
And if we have the right to a taxi ride what other rights do we have? The right to landscaping? The right to carpet cleaning? The right to home pizza delivery?
b is in the private sector, if I can afford the services of his company should he be compelled to provide service to me?
At what point in the private sector does a service become a right and should properly be dealt with by the public sector? And who gets to make that decision?
Interesting question. I have, in the past, refused to do work for certain organizations whose goals or ethics I take issue with. Those decisions have probably limited our corporate growth. But one of the reasons I went into business for myself was in order to spend my time working on things that matter to me, and that I believe in.
In other words – I retain the right to serve you or not, and I take the consequences in the market, which rewards or punishes those decisions. If I make too many bad decisions, I go broke (or apply for a bailout, of course.)
@Raphael –
“Oh, I’m sure reading that conversation will only confirm whatever prearrangement of thoughts people have for me already.”
If you mean that it indicates you will defend your predjudices past the point of logic, then I’m afraid I’ve already come to that conclusion on my own after our discussion of the Gay Pride Parade.
You do try for a higher standard though. That much I’ll give you…
You still live in this society and your government has decided that discrimination based on certain categories should not be allowed. As a Canadian citizen, you have a duty to obey the law. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act both make clear what your obligations are in this regard. So, you can discriminate, but you can expect to pay the price should a fellow citizen take issue with you. That’s what a healthy democracy does, in my opinion – protect the rights of all citizens to be treated fairly.
@sooey: So you are saying that everyone has the right to everything – except for those in the private sector who do not have the right to refuse service to anyone…. yes?
PS: I consider “my government” to be a farce and the majority of its’ decision to be farcical. I may be compelled to follow its’ laws but that does not mean that I either do so willingly or agree with them.
I didn’t say that at all, actually. Perhaps you’re hallucinating. I simply pointed out that we have laws against discrimination based on: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability and conviction for which a pardon has been granted. Public/private is irrelevant.
P.S. You have every right to consider your government whatever you want.
Stageleft:
With respect, you’re plain wrong. Anyone offering a service to the public–whether it’s a government or a private business–may not discriminate. No “Whites Only” signs permitted; no refusal of service at a restaurant because the would-be client is Jewish; no refusal of a licensed taxi service to a person because he or she is accompanied by a working dog.
Or are you arguing that all of the laws in place that make this so should be repealed?
@stageleft –
The question is should private business be compelled do do so?
As with most questions there is a lot of grey area here, but I’d go with a qualified yes. Sure, a private business should be allowed to refuse to serve you, personally, but not if they are refusing service to entire subsection of the population due to ethnic, sexual, or religious biases. If not, we wouldn’t be reading about segregation in the history books, we’d still be living it.
And even there, you can possibly get away with discrimination if denial of the service they are providing doesn’t cause that population subsection any undue harm. I mean, if you’re a consultant and refuse to consult for certain people, it is unlikely they are being unduly put out, nor do I remember any right to consulting services listed anywhere, (legal services are another matter).
Another favourtie example would be pharmacists, who are mainly independent businesspeople. Even most ”in-house” pharmacists are actually independent contractors. Should they be allowed to determine what medicines they will deign to fill prescriptions for and to who? How about doctors? While they may get paid by the government in this country, they are mostly businesspeople themselves. How much leeway should we give them to refuse service?
The reason such are good examples is because such folks aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. IF the local doctor or pharmacist won’t serve you, odds are that you may find yourself without access to another and effectively denied medical services entirely.
Now go back to cab companies and seeing eye dogs. Odds are pretty good the person with the dog isn’t commuting regularly by car, and bus and transit services aren’t always a viable option to some locations, (and those of the Conservative mindset would like to privatize such services as well if they could). Deny the blind with seeing eye dogs the use of taxis, and you’ve now infringed upon his freedom of movement. Without access to taxi service, there are places that person can no longer go. So yes, cabs, or at least cab companies, can be compelled to carry such individuals and their dogs.
Ultimately, you don’t have the right to infringe upon other people rights, and denial of certain services can do just that. Under those circumstances, I believe you can, and should, be compelled to provide such services, private or no.
Originally Posted By BJ: I don’t know SL, try opening a business that serves whites only and see how far you get.
Exactly, I think it’s as dumb way (as I have said preciously) to run a business as one could possibly imagine – today’s society would not see the place in business long as soon as the word got out…. don’t you think?
I disagree, we are not the same society now as we were then
Healthcare is a right – is it not?
A statement that presupposes that there is only one taxi in the city and the driver does not want dogs in his cab – how likely is that?
I agree to a degree – certain “public” services are a right that may not be infringed upon, I do not see the “right to a taxi ride in the cab of your choice” or the “right to a condom in the pharmacy of your choosing” as actually existing…. then again maybe I’m behind the curve on this one, everyone seems to be under the impression that they have the “right” to a great many things that I don’t consider to be rights.
PS; Somewhat of an apology for the brevity of the reply, I’m in heavy catchup mode in the comments section
@Dr.Dawg: I am arguing that there is a significant difference between “rights” and what people consider to be “their rights“.
I do not believe that in this day and age “whites only” business of any nature would survive, the general public would (quote properly) shun it. I know I would.
I believe that the public outcry should a single Jewish person be denied service at a resturant simply because they are Jewish would close the restaurant – and I would help with that pubic outcry.
We obviously have a rather large difference of opinion about whether or not society as a whole is or is not capable of “doing the right thing” – and mine is the more optimistic.
Society has done the right thing. We’ve put anti-discrimination laws in place to protect minority rights so that they’re not dependent on your optimism. They’re real and defined. For all Canadian citizens.