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Question: Is this similar to Christian pharmacists refusing to fill morning after pill presecriptions?

A two-tiered airport taxi system could lead to 'Chapter Two'
Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune
Last update: October 16, 2006 – 12:02 AM

Imagine you're returning from a trip with a bottle of French wine to celebrate your wedding anniversary. At the airport, you drag your bags out to the taxi stand in the cold breeze. As the cab pulls up, you hoist your suitcases, eager to get home.
But when the driver spots your wine, he shakes his head emphatically. The Qur'an prohibits him from accepting passengers with alcohol, he tells you. OK, so you'll take the next cab. But the next driver waves you off, and the next.

Scenes like this have played out hundreds of times at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport over the last few years. About three-fourths of the 900 taxi drivers at the airport are Somali, many of them Muslim. In September, the Star Tribune reported that one flight attendant had been refused by five drivers, because she had wine in her suitcase.

Taxi drivers who refuse a customer, except for safety reasons, must go to the end of the taxi line.

They face a potential three-hour wait for the next fare. Muslim drivers asked for an exemption, and officials of the Metropolitan Airports Commission proposed color-coded lights on cab roofs to indicate whether the driver would accept a passenger carrying alcohol.

But last week, the MAC announced that it would not adopt the new policy. Officials cited an overwhelmingly negative public reaction, among other reasons. "I've had over 500 e-mails and calls, and not one supported the change," said Patrick Hogan, MAC spokesman.

Why? Aren't Americans accustomed to granting modest legal accommodations to groups or individuals on the basis of their religious beliefs?

For many people, Hogan speculates, the issue may have been bigger than drivers' reluctance to transport alcohol. "I think people were afraid there would be a Chapter Two."

In some other cities, "Chapter Two" has already begun. Muslim cab drivers elsewhere, for example, have refused to transport blind customers with seeing-eye dogs, which they say their religion considers unclean. On Oct. 6, the Daily Mail of London reported that two cab drivers had been fined for rejecting blind customers. In Melbourne, Australia, "at least 20 dog-aided blind people have lodged discrimination complaints" after similarly being refused service, the Herald Sun reported.