Why can Muslims refuse to sell liquor, but Christians must serve gay people?
Aug 3, 2015, 9:00 AM | Updated: 2:33 pm
(AP)
Consider this situation: You’re headed home after a long day of work and you decide to pick up a pack of beer. Stopping at a store, you bring your selected brewski to the checkout counter. The clerk looks at the beer and leaves.
You wait. And eventually, another clerk comes and completes the transaction.
Why?
Because the first clerk had religious beliefs that prevented him from selling the beer.
One KIRO Radio listener wrote in and asked: What is the difference between a Muslim refusing to sell alcohol and a Christian refusing to serve gay couples?
KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross considered that letter and got to the bottom of the issue.
The topic is reminiscent of an interview Ross previously conducted with Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Institute of Washington. The organization is currently preparing Washington’s churches for potential lawsuits if they refuse services to gay couples, Backholm said. He also said that there is a threat to Christian business owners should they refuse service to gay customers, citing the conflict with Arlene’s Flowers as an example. The Richland florist refused to serve a gay couple’s wedding and a legal battle ensued.
Another Northwest business, a bakery in Gresham, Ore. also found itself in legal troubles after refusing to serve a gay wedding.
The author of the letter conveyed a similar sentiment to Backholm — that small-business owners have no religious rights.
“He thinks there’s a double standard that treats Christians one way and Muslims another,” Ross said, reading the letter. “He says he goes to the Southcenter Target to buy some liquor, and when he gets to the cashier, it turns out the cashier is a Muslim and won’t ring up the liquor. He has to wait a couple of minutes for a non-Muslim cashier to come over and ring up the liquor.”
The letter’s author writes that the Muslim’s religious rights are being honored, but Christians’ aren’t.
“This person can exercise their religious rights by not providing service and there is no problem, whereas some small business person wants to exercise their right, or what they think is their right, not to provide service,” Ross said.
“And yet, as the listener points out, the people who run Arlene’s Flowers are being punished for essentially doing a similar thing, refusing to provide one of their products to a customer based on their religious beliefs,” he said.
How is this different from the Christian business owner scenario?
After checking with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, Ross reported that employers are required to make accommodations for employees’ religions.
“Target is likely required to accept that their employee is not going to ring up liquor,” Ross said.
But there is perhaps a larger reason why the two cases are not so alike.
“Now the attorney general’s office points out another difference between the two cases,” Ross said. “Gay people are a protected class and liquor drinkers are not. Which, I guess, means no merchant is obligated to sell you liquor if they don’t want to.”
So until liquor drinkers unite and demand equal protection to imbibe under the law, the two situations don’t exactly line up, at least as far as the law goes.
But Ross said that the intersection of religion and business does make the two situations somewhat similar.
“I think the two cases are pretty close,” he said. “Except for the state’s treatment. The listener got his liquor after waiting for a non-Muslim cashier and the gay couple got their flowers just by going to another florist.”