UK retailer M&S faces boycott after Muslim worker refused to sell alcohol

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/23/22021111-uk-retailer-ms-faces-boycott-after-muslim-worker-refused-to-sell-alcohol?lite

I wonder if I could have made headlines by refusing to serve coffee when I worked at the only Starbucks in Orem (back in the late 90's).

It is not just that islam always gets a free pass that other religions (and atheists!) never get. It is that the appeasement of muslims always goes further and further.

Today they refuse to sell alcohol. Tomorrow, pork. Then, novels by Rushdie. After that, plane tickets to Israel. And somewhere on the way they will refuse to shake hands of the opposite seks, cannot accept pictures of women in underwear in the underwear department, or a gay and lesbian newsmagazine at the newsstand.

For dog's sake, you applied for a job at a department store, so do the bleeding job and STFU.

By the way, every year I spend vacations in countries like Morocco, Tunesia and Egypt (Marrakesh, Djerba and Luxor being favourites) and no-one has ever refused to hand me over an alcoholic beverage. No-one.

(BTW, how do I deactivate the thingy that always changes "always" into "Always" and "sex" (the English word) into "seks" (the Dutch version)?)

Don't worry about that thingy. We get you.

Ditto to your comment:

"For dog's sake, you applied for a job at a department store, so do the bleeding job and STFU."

LOL. Can I use that line?

His religion ends with HIM not having to buy alcohol, not making everyone else live his religion.

I'm tired of everyone having to keep from offending people's various religious sensitivities...as if devout religious followers are not trying to impose their religious rules on everyone else.

They're calling it Muslims and Sharia instead of Marks and Spencer. People keep asking them on Facebook whether a non-muslim could refuse to sell halal meat. It also puts pressure on other Muslims not to handle pork or booze, and will lead to customers avoiding muslim-looking checkout operators.

People still remember the Early Learning Centre in the UK removing the toy pig from their farm set so as not to offend. They lost a lot of business over it.

Kendal Mint Cake Wrote:
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> They're calling it Muslims and Sharia instead of
> Marks and Spencer. People keep asking them on
> Facebook whether a non-muslim could refuse to sell
> halal meat. It also puts pressure on other Muslims
> not to handle pork or booze, and will lead to
> customers avoiding muslim-looking checkout
> operators.
>
> People still remember the Early Learning Centre in
> the UK removing the toy pig from their farm set so
> as not to offend. They lost a lot of business over
> it.

What the heck is halal meat??

Halal is similar to "kosher". The meats and food must be raised, butchered, cooked and served in a specified way. And, some meats are forbidden.

southern idaho inactive Wrote:
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>
> What the heck is halal meat??


Halal meat means that the animal was killed with a knife and without any sedatives. In other words, unacceptably cruel.

Some people therefore campaign for legislation to forbid cruel meat in order to ensure a humane treatment of farm animals. Muslims call this islamophobic and say it would make it impossible to bide by the rules of their religion. Nonsense, because islam does not compel muslims to eat meat.

Disagree about the cruelty issue. Animals killed under kosher or halal rules must be killed with the least pain possible; the knife must sever an artery, and it must be extremely sharp. Both religions require a prayer to be said before the animal is slaughtered. Kosher meat is also inspected by trained rabbis to insure the animal was healthy.

Both halal and kosher meat do not go through the filthy production process used in American meat factories. They aren't as likely to be contaminated with bacteria.

on the painkiller thing.

And nobody here is saying the conditions that exist in American slaughterhouses are the example of cleanliness, humaneness and pain-free, stress-free death by which all other slaughterhouses should be measured.

I'd like to know who's monitoring the sharpness of the knives...

Even using that logic, I'm not telling my surgeon I'll forego anesthesia the next time I get surgery. I'm sure his scalpel is really, really sharp.

onlinemoniker Wrote:
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> I'd like to know who's monitoring the sharpness of
> the knives...

The imam is. Not a veterinarian. Veterinarians do not approve.

That is why it has been a common way of committing suicide.

Actually some sedatives are allowed by the majority of those who perform the kosher/halal voodoo. It's more about getting out all the blood as fast as possible. Don't know wether the blood is supposedly sacred or unclean or whatever makes it unfit for human consumption, but that's the main issue.

If that individual worked for me he/she would get fired. The job description would be whatever it is...don't do the job, you're toast.

Ron Burr

I think it's fair to say that most British Muslims are perfectly happy to sell alcohol or the UK's Indian restaurant trade wouldn't exist :-)

I find this bizarre. ONE Muslim refused to handle an alcohol transaction and it's international news / cause for a boycott?

Quote from the NBC article - "Will you allow staff with Christian belief to stop working Sundays," asked Richard Woodward. ANSWER = Yes, they will, because UK retail workers have special protection allowing them to opt out of Sunday working.

UK law and common sense means that if anyone has a religious / belief / cultural problem with dealing with part of their job role, AND you can easily work around it, you're expected to work round it. In this case, it's a big shop and (if I understand rightly) the lady concerned wasn't normally put on the food tills, so she didn't have to handle alcohol. By the way, if you can't easily find a way round the problem, eg you're a small off-license (liquor store) you don't have to employ someone who won't handle alcohol. So in answer to another question, yes you absolutely could refuse to serve halal meat if you thought it unacceptably cruel. Unless you'd taken a job in a halal butchers, of course.

There's plenty of things that are legitimate targets for criticism in the world of Islam but this ain't one of them. Wonder why it's raised so much debate, hmmm?

Anon Brit Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's plenty of things that are legitimate
> targets for criticism in the world of Islam but
> this ain't one of them. Wonder why it's raised so
> much debate, hmmm?

It's raised such a fuss because this is hardly an isolated case of Muslim workers trying to impose their religious beliefs on others inappropriately. A few years ago, a Muslim clerk at a different branch of Marks and Spencer refused to ring up a book of children's Bible stories, telling the customer who wanted to buy it that she wouldn't touch the book because it was a "filthy" thing.

There has been more than one case of Muslim taxi decouple of years ago, vers in Britain refusing to pick up blind people with guide dogs, as dogs are considered unclean according to most Islamic scholars.

There have also been female Muslim nurses and other medical personnel in some British hospitals who have refused to wash their hands appropriately because they would have to expose their forearms in order to wash them. (No joke.) You would think anyone working in a hospital would fear getting something like MRSA more than the wrath of their deity.

Also only within the last few years, British Airways either fired or suspended (I forget which) a Christian employee for wearing a cross around her neck, saying it was a=inappropriate to wear a religious symbol. However, BA has numerous Muslim female employees who are allowed to wear headscarves on the job.

I would encourage you to Google all of the above if you don't believe me. You will find similar stories as well. Yes, Islam nearly always gets a free pass in the UK; other religions do not. I'm sure that's why people are (finally) making a fuss. "Hmmm" indeed....

There have similar cases here too. Muslim cabdrivers at a major airport (Minneapolis, I believe) threatened not to pick up any passengers who had alcohol (even if it were sealed or in a box). Since the great majority of the drivers there are Muslim, that would have resulted in a lot of passengers not getting rides if they had dared to pick up wine in Duty Free, etc. After a lot of protest, the airport officials chose not to cave to the drivers' demands. There has also been at least one case of Muslim Target employees who refused to ring up pork products. (Target sells alcohol too, but I don't recall reading anything about any issues with that, for some reason.)

How would you feel if, say, a TBM sales clerk refused to ring up your "immodest" swimsuit or strapless dress? Or a cross pendant? I don't think most of us want any employee of a business we patronize, Muslim or not, to decide what we can and can't buy. If they feel so strongly about it, they need to open their own religiously-correct stores or work elsewhere.

Sorry, I didn't proofread my second paragraph; it should read "There has been more than one case of Muslim taxi drivers in Britain refusing to pick up blind people with guide dogs, as dogs are considered unclean according to most Islamic scholars."

Just wanted to add - Many times when I've come to the till in the supermarket, the assistant hasn't been able to ring up the alcohol because s/he wasn't 18 yet (Brit law). There is a one minute delay max while the supervisor comes over to ring up my beer and the lad or lass then does the rest of the groceries. No big deal.

How much accommodating of the religious is too much accommodating of the religious. Especially in countries that have traditionally been very tolerant and open and accepting of a wide range of beliefs and social norms.

Is this too much: http://www.victoriassecret.com

Or this: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/will-new-itv-sitcom-vicious-starring-sir-ian-mckellen-and-sir-derek-jacobi-prove-a-watershed-for-gay-relationships-in-tv-drama-8595198.html

Or this: http://www.greygoose.com

Or perhaps this: http://torontoist.com/2013/12/the-supreme-court-has-struck-down-canadas-prostitution-laws-now-what/

Or even this: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/lady-gaga-unveils-eye-popping-644461

At some point, don't we just say enough is enough? The West is the West, in large part, because of the wide spectrum of beliefs and views and norms that are allowed to exist and be expressed in those societies. That's why it is, well, the West.

There are numerous locales in the World were a divergent range of beliefs and expressions and norms are not tolerated by society. If a person enjoys that type of a society, it would seem to me to make more sense for that person to choose to live in that type of a restrictive society, rather than choose to live in a more libertine society, and try to make said libertine society restrictive and cloistered and repressed.

Makes more sense to choose to live in the shackled society if that's what one prefers, rather than choose to live in the unshackled society, and then foment discord in said society, due to its lack of shackles.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2013 06:30PM by schlock.

schlock Wrote:
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> There are numerous locales in the World were a
> divergent range of beliefs and expressions and
> norms are not tolerated by society. If a person
> enjoys that type of a society, it would seem to me
> to make more sense for that person to choose to
> live in that type of a restrictive society, rather
> than choose to live in a more libertine society,
> and try to make said libertine society restrictive
> and cloistered and repressed.
>
> Makes more sense to choose to live in the shackled
> society if that's what one prefers, rather than
> choose to live in the unshackled society, and then
> foment discord in said society, due to its lack of
> shackles.

+1,000

That article is BS. There has been NO boycott of MS. Storm in a teacup.

There has! Look at all the comments on the M and S FaceBook page and in response to the Daily Mail and Telegraph articles.

Over 27,000 people so far on the main DM comment board have said they would leave their stuff at the till and walk out if this happened to them. That's an awful lot of people bothering to agree with one comment.

I live in the UK, in a city with a very high muslim population (White people are actually a minority in my age group), and most muslims I know actually drink alcohol, and I'm sure most of the ones that don't would be fine with selling it. So the situation of a muslim refusing to sell alcohol is probably quite rare. Also, it's not she refused to let them buy it, she went to get another member of staff to do it. It's very annoying making the customer wait for someone else to come along, but it's not like she kicked them out the store or anything.

Obviously what the muslim did was wrong, but I can't understand the uproar.

Religion is a lifestyle choice. If it bothers them so much they can choose to get a job in a halal butcher or something more to their liking.

The rest of the story is that M&S acknowledged that the siutation was their fault as they usually place Muslim workers in non food areas where these situations do not arise. My own view as a frequent visitor to Britain is that Islam has already won the "battle" there, Why any country should make consessions in life style or social preference to any immigrant is beyond me. Britain's culture of more than 1,000 years apparently has no more value than one introduced heavily in the past twenty or thirty years,

This whole episode is also reminiscent of Franck Ribéry.

Ribéry is a French soccer player who converted to islam after falling in love with a muslim girl. When his team (Bayern Munich I believe) won their country's championship, the team's players poured champagne over eachother's head. That's what they do in Germany to celebrate. It's a tradition. But Ribéry was furious that a few drops of such a satanic concoction were spilled unto his holier-than-thou shirt because champagne contains alcohol and alcohol is unislamic.

So he made a big fuss, accused his team mates of vile racism, demanded an apology from everyone who works for Bayern Munich and celebrated his victory by banging a few underage prostitutes.