Just creeping along…one little push at a time!  Americans are known for being tolerant folks – after all, we have been known as being the melting pot.  Unfortunately, when I keep seeing stories like this, I start thinking "tossed salad" as a result of an overabundance of multiculturalism and an over emphasis of identity politics – "I am my group, my group is me". 

It just seems that the monniker "American" just isn’t enough anymore.  It is rapidly becoming a time when people start believing that they are able to pick which laws they wish to follow and what social mores they keep.  Too often, it is about ME vs. my RESPONSIBILITY.

If you take a job in the private sector, especially that in the service area, what the heck good is it to take a position that serves the general public, when you don’t want to serve the public?

No good. at all.  From the Star Tribune:

Customer service and faith clash at registers

Beryl Dsouza was late and in no mood for delays when she stopped at a Target store after work two weeks ago for milk, bread and bacon.

So Dsouza was taken aback when the cashier — who had on the traditional headscarf, or hijab, worn by many Muslim women — refused to swipe the bacon through the checkout scanner.

"She made me scan the bacon. Then she opened the bag and made me put it in the bag," said Dsouza, 53, of Minneapolis. "It made me wonder why this person took a job as a cashier."

Me too.  This is not serving the public – it is serving yourself.  "Me" has become more and more important in our narcissistic society.  This is just one more bit to the puzzle, where YOU have to accomodate ME, no matter what is expected.  After all, who is more important than ME?

But that is just part of it.  Once again, we see in Minneapolis the push to change our society into following that of one that is Sharia controlled – one piece of pork at a time (gee, does that mean that we will have to pick another word to describe what politicians try to do – bring home the bacon?"). 

In the latest example of religious beliefs creating tension in the workplace, some Muslims in the Twin Cities are adhering to a strict interpretation of the Qur’an that prohibits the handling of pork products.

Instead of swiping the items themselves, they are asking non-Muslim employees or shoppers to do it for them.

If they wish to follow their religion, fine and dandy.  If they wish to then have us follow it as well – well, not so much.  By requiring others to do the work for which they have been hired such as this or the taxi drivers that I have written about a number of times, they are expecting that by using the "freedom of religion" in a way that most Americans find obnoxious.

And I find it dangerous – and if carried further – illegal.  When do I, as I have asked before, get to start putting my religious tenets before established law?  Why should they have special privileges that I do not get to use?

Dr. Shah Khan, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Minnesota in Fridley, said the Somali Muslim community is divided between those who believe it is wrong only to eat pork and more orthodox Muslims who believe the prohibition extends to selling, touching or handling the meat.

He urged people to remember the extraordinary adjustments many Somalis have made in coming to the Twin Cities. "Many of these people are refugees. They may have been tortured. And they came here having never held a book in English," he said. "They’re already adapting to our society. We need to adapt to them, too."

Wrong…and nothing but spin.  When you come to our society, the onus is on you to adapt and to adopt.  Yes, they may be refugees, but having decided to come here, bring the best of your former homeland but there are customs here that need to be adhered to.  Why would they prefer to change ours to those of that homeland that caused them to come here in the first place?

I’m not trying to be xenophobic, but again, I see this as yet another case of a lack of assimilation, and a lack of motiviation.

And it is this lack of assimilation that is changing us from being the melting pot that is so unique in all the world to just an aggregation of small ethnic and religious communities. 

Target released this statement in response: "Providing guests with consistently fast checkouts is a key, fundamental part of our business and our guest service commitment. As always, we continue to explore reasonable solutions that consider the concerns of team members while ensuring that we maintain our ability to provide the highest level of guest service."

Basic question – if I wanted to price and bag my own goods, wouldn’t I have wanted to use a self-checkout station?  Why go to a cashier if I have to do it myself?  Why should I have to wait for yet another employee (which might take a while given that most stores try to run as lean as possible)?

This situation certainly isn’t going to help my ire…. 

Eden Prairie-based Supervalu, the nation’s third-largest supermarket chain and the parent company of Cub Foods, moves new employees into jobs that don’t interfere with their moral beliefs, said Haley Meyer, a company spokeswoman.

I have absolutely no problem with this….this should be the reality of those that do not or wish to not fully do a job due to religious convictions. 

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers are required to make reasonable accommodations for a person’s religious practices if it doesn’t impose an undue hardship.

A customer’s personal preferences is usually not a factor in deciding whether a religious practice is protected in the workplace, noted Khadija Athman, national civil rights manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington.

I, as a customer, expect someone to carry out the job in which they are employed.  And I treat CAIR with the level of respect due to an organization who leaders have been tied to terrorist groups and whose leaders, in the past, have stated that they wish to see Sharia law be the law of the US.  And I do not appreciate the attempt to change the person who is at fault. THat is nothing but spin and an attempt to further have folks question who is in the right.  Which is not that cashier.

And I do not believe that CAIR is just a civil rights group either.  Their foundations lie with the Muslim Brotherhood – an organization that wishes for Islam and Sharia law to be over all. 

Some people see the Muslims’ actions as evidence of an unwillingness to adapt to the American workplace, and to the society as a whole.

"It’s about one ethnic group imposing its own beliefs on the rest of us," said Manny Laureano, 51, of Plymouth, who plays trumpet for the Minnesota Orchestra. "It goes against the whole idea of this country as different groups of people who came together to create a single culture."

Couldn’t have said it better myself…..