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Last I checked, Sharia law wasn't in effect in the United States — but good luck explaining that to your Somali cabdriver.

Minneapolis-St. Paul is concerned that its taxi service is deteriorating. Citing their religious beliefs, some Muslim taxi drivers from Somalia are refusing to transport customers carrying or suspected of carrying alcohol. ... "Travelers often feel surprised and insulted," says [airport spokesman Patrick Hogan].  "Sometimes, several drivers in a row refuse carriage." ... The airport is expected to propose today that drivers who wish to avoid alcohol-toting passengers change the light on their car roofs, possibly to a different color.

WTF? Why would the airport authorities bend over backwards to accommodate Quran-wielding bluenoses? I like the current system much better: taxi drivers who refuse a fare are sent back to the end of the line, a measure that costs them time and money. The cabbies protest the practice, but screw 'em: there's often a price to pay for sticking to your principles, and these ostentatiously virtuous teetotalers should be willing to pay it without whining.

And who else will the pious cretins seek to turn away as customers? Should cabs have another color light on their roofs in case the driver won't take gay people? And another light for drivers who shut out women without headscarves? And yet another for cabbies who refuse blind people with seeing-eye dogs, as dogs are unclean under Islam? And maybe a fifth light to signal "no Catholics"?

Comments

[jk]

Isn't it more efficient to have different lights? And what the hell do you care? How does it affect you or anyone? Also, seeing eye dogs are allowed in Islam as is any dog which serves a purpose beyond that of a pet.

[GreginOz]

Yeah but what if you have a "Date Dog"? A , like, totally gorgeous Lassie (snigger). C'mon, you how the bedouin love their goats! Isn't that where the saying "Get your goat" came from anyway?

[GreginOz]

'N don't even START on "Camel toe"!!!!

[Phil]

I'm not quite sure how it would be more efficient to have different colored lights. Explain this to me. There are literally thousands of things these guys could choose to discriminate based on. Do you want to have to carry around a can-I-ride-this-cab color guide with you?

A color for gays (or maybe just a pink triangle), a color for people who prefer creamy to regular peanut butter, a color for people who doth plow on the sabbath, a color for people who have sex outside of marriage, a color for women who like being on top, a color for women who like men who like men.

I say let them do it. Once they start hemorrhaging money, the idea will seem a lot less novel.

[Dan Hill]

Another example of the unintended consequences of government regulation. If the number of taxi licences wasn't controlled by government and anyone was free to run a taxi, how long do you think taxis that want to pick and choose their customers would stay in business? In an unregulated market, if some moslem zealot doesn't want to carry women and is happy making $2.50 a day, that's his problem.

Of course other businesses would also have to be free to exercise their property rights - want to use our taxi rank, then don't even think about refusing a fare.

As always, the answer is less government not more.

[George Arndt]

What these taxi drivers need to be reminded is that we are a free and tolerant society, for the most part, at least.

[jk]

Well said, Dan. Let the market determine which passengers the taxi drivers can actually discriminate against.