Woman fired for eating bacon (Offending Muslims a Termination Offense in Orlando)

Washington Times ^ | Aug 16, 2004 | Inside the Beltway--John McCaslin

[SauronOfMordor]

    Hold the bacon

    Apart from Hurricane Charley, we've been following a most intriguing story out of Orlando, Fla., where a woman says she was fired from her job because she ate a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich at work, offending Muslim employees.

    According to the Orlando Sentinel, Lina Morales has filed a religious-discrimination lawsuit against Rising Star Telecommunications, saying she lost her administrative position because she violated a policy banning pork and pork products from the workplace.

    She says the rule "constitutes religious discrimination because it is based in Islamic law for the benefit of some Muslim employees who were offended by the presence of pork -- and at the expense of non-Muslims such as Morales, who is Catholic," explains the newspaper.

    "I felt I was being discriminated against because I was not Muslim. I wasn't trying to make somebody else eat it," the woman reasons.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Fired for eating bacon? Heck, that's nothing. I was drummed out of the Cub Scouts for eating brownies!

[John Valentine]

The Moslem should not be forced to eat pork...

Actually, I have been re-thinking this premise lately, as I think there could be some genuinely salubrious effects if we were to adopt precisely the opposite policy...

For example, an FDA rule that all processed foods manufactured for consumption in the USA must include at least trace amounts of pork or pork fat.

I for one would support this.

[John Valentine]

The Moslem should not be forced to eat pork...

Actually, I have been re-thinking this premise lately, as I think there could be some genuinely salubrious effects if we were to adopt precisely the opposite policy...

For example, an FDA rule that all processed foods manufactured for consumption in the USA must include at least trace amounts of pork or pork fat.

I for one would support this.

[John Valentine]

How were they? ;>)

[SauronOfMordor]

Fired for eating bacon? Heck, that's nothing. I was drummed out of the Cub Scouts for eating brownies!

LOL

[Solamente]

Here in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Muslim check out girls working in the supermarkets bag the pork, risking the usual leakage of fluids from the package as the customer must endure.

I suppose it is not of a high enough profile to complain about ....yet.

[Oatka]

"From the article I was reading on this the other day, the problem was not because she ate pork, but because she didn't listen after being twice asked not to cook pork in the company microwave where muslim employees prepared their food."

Tough Noogies. What happens if a Jew used the microwave? That's where this is heading. The tail is wagging the dog.

YOU conform to OUR culture. No Jew that I know of has complained about something like this nor have I heard a Christian complain about Catholics cooking fish on Fridays. What the Hell is the matter with these people? Oh yeah, the owner of this outfit is a Muslim and has imported all the Old World biases here and wants us to conform to his biases.

[savedbygrace]

No, incorporation means the company gains certain tax and liability advantages in exchange for whatever the state says they have to do. OK, I'm exaggerating, but that is the theory. When a company incorporates, it is no longer a totally private company. The State dictates in certain areas.

Same thing holds for churches that incorporate, BTW.

If the piper pays ya, then at some point ya gotta pay the piper.

BTW, your example is really lame. Sheesh, if you really wanted to sex it up, you could have made the law require the company to hold public seances every Friday. Come on, where's your originality?

Again I say, the woman wins. (The key idea is: accommodation.)

[Sam the Sham]

If the company was Orthodox Jews and you insisted on cooking pork in the one cafeteria microwave, would they put up with that ?

No, they would not.

[Technogeeb]

Didn't the Prophet (may peace be upon him) marry a girl when she was 7 and consumate it when she was 9 (and he was 54)?

No...

She was six, not seven.

[Mr. Lucky]

Yuk.

[monday]

"If the company was Orthodox Jews and you insisted on cooking pork in the one cafeteria microwave, would they put up with that ? "

They would have to. Intolerance in the workplace is not tolerated in todays PC environment. What this Muslim company is going to have to do is provide a separate microwave for cooking pork. The same as an orthodox Jewish company would have to do.

[RightWingAtheist]

Were Jerry Lee Lewis and Woody Allen in your troupe?

[monday]

you said: "All the above should be OK as well, as it is THEIR company."

Thats not the way it works. If you discriminate against anyone for reasons of race, religion, or sex, you will be fined and sued until you have no money left.

You said: " No one has the right not to be offended."

lol, I think everyone has the right "not to be offended". Are you sure thats what you meant? I am rarely offended by others, and I never even considered that I might not have that right?

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Were Jerry Lee Lewis and Woody Allen in your troupe?

No, but Jim McGreevy was. He liked his brownies with nuts.

[snooker]

If they eat pork do they go poof? hmmm.

[Guillermo]

I d not agree with anti-discrimination laws.

That's exactly what I mean. NO ONE should have the right not to be offended.

If you think everyone has the right "not to be offended," then you are anti-freedom.

[monday]

"That's exactly what I mean. NO ONE should have the right not to be offended."

I think I know what you mean. It is a simple misunderstanding. You mean no one should have "the right to PROHIBIT OTHERS from offending them". A direct reading of what you said, means that you think that, "everyone should HAVE TO be offended" by people, even if they are not. Clearly this is not the case.

As it turns out, I agree with you. So why do you propose that this company is right in prohibiting this woman from offending her Muslim coworkers by cooking pork? This is America, and people have to tolerate others even though these people may offend them.

I know you don't believe in anti discrimination laws, and I agree with you there as well. People should be free to associate with whoever they like. Unfortunately that right has been infringed in the workplace and employers are forced to hire people they may not want to hire. This is reality. Saying you don't agree with them doesn't make them go away.

Because they do exist, the Muslims in this woman's office must tolerate her, and her customs, and her company cannot fire her. Do you understand now?

[Lee'sGhost]

"Didn't the Prophet (may peace be upon him) marry a girl when she was 7 and consumate it when she was 9 (and he was 54)?"

I think that was Woody Allen.

[Guillermo]

I don't think the company discriminated against her because she was not a Mohammedan (as they probably knew that when tehy hired her).

She was fired for breaking a company policy.

I side with the company.