I’m driving home from Bloomington last night, punching around the AM dial (nothing better than late night AM radio…STILL). I pick up Nashville, Cincinnati, Detroit, Dallas, Minneapolis, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Atlanta…I’m having a blast! And then I pick up a talk show on out of Denver.
The host on that station is upset that Muslim cabbies in Minneapolis are refusing to transport people with alcohol. He says, “if it’s part of the job, you have to deal with it. If you knew that going in, why take the job?!?!?”
He then tells of a time when he was at a major league baseball game and ordered a hot dog with chili, and the girl behind the counter had to wait for someone else to come over and help her because “she didn’t handle pork products”. So again, he says, “why would you take that job if you can’t handle the job requirements??!?!”
So a caller joins in and says he’s a cabbie in Reno, and if a gay couple wants a ride to a gay bar, he has to take them, whether he supports their “behavior” or not, because “that’s the job I signed up to do.” And the host says, “see? that’s what I’m talking about. Good for you! You just do the job, right? Because if you DIDN’T transport the gays, these liberals would be calling you a bigot!”
Well, guess who’s the next caller…yep, me! I say, “I gotta tell ya, I agree with what you’re saying…if you take a job knowing what the requirements are and still refuse to DO some of the requirements, why should you be allowed to keep that job?”
And he says, “right on, that’s what I’m saying! Why is that so hard to understand?”
I add, “I dunno. I just think these Muslims shouldn’t be letting their religious beliefs get in the way of their job.”
And he’s excited now, “Exactly…no one is telling them they can’t be Muslim (the old conservative cabal there, see it?), but they’ve gotta do the job as described.”
I go on: “Absolutely, I agree. And because of that, I feel the same way about druggists. If a guy takes a job at a pharmacy that sells the pill and other forms of birth control and doesn’t want to do that based on his religious beliefs, then he shouldn’t work there or shouldn’t even have applied in the first place, right?”
Silence. Or, as we call it in the business, dead air. Then I hear a click on my end.
I crank up the radio, hear the end of my own comments as the 7-second delay kicks in, and then I hear the silence.
Followed by this intelligent comeback: “Okay people, let’s stick to the topic here…we’ve been talking about only ONE thing here…Muslim cabbies and their refusal to take fares that have alcoholic beverages on them. See how these liberals are? For the last five minutes, I’ve been laser beam focused on Muslim cabbies, and then they gotta try and spin the subject and twist what I’m saying. (heavy sigh) We’ll be right back.”
Just to recap…the guy who brought up the big league ballpark situation and allowed the caller right in front of me to express his displeasure with gay people says he’s “laser beam focused” on Muslims/cabbies/alcohol and hangs up on me without remotely answering my question.
I drove on, shook my head, laughed out loud, and punched up a Jeffrey Steele CD.
WPMU Theme pack by