Who Can Really Say?

There's a general sense that's grown up over the last 30-40 years that everyone ought to be free from discrimination by anyone against anyone for anything , and here's a great example of how the entire notion is often so badly misunderstood.

In Orlando, a woman has been fired from her job at a company owned by Muslims, because she violated a company policy -- she brought "unclean" meat (a/k/a pork) to work for lunch and ate it in the company cafeteria. She'd been warned not to do it, but a BLT broke the proverbial camel's back. (Sorry for the obvious and trite metaphor but I couldn't resist).

Lina Morales was hired as an administrative assistant at Rising Star -- a Central Florida telecommunications company with strong Muslim ties, Local 6 News reported.

However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination.

Morales, who is Catholic, was warned about eating pizza with meat the Muslim faith considered "unclean," Local 6 News reported. She was then fired for eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, according to the report.

"Are you telling me they fired you because you had something with ham on it?" Local 6 News reporter Mike Holfeld asked.

"Yes," Morales said.

Holfeld asked, "A pizza and a BLT sandwich?"

" Yes," Morales said.

Local 6 News obtained the termination letter that states she was fired for refusing to comply with company policy that pork and pork products are not permissible on company premises.

Local 6 News obtained the termination letter that states she was fired for refusing to comply with company policy that pork and pork products are not permissible on company premises.

However, by the company's own admission to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that policy is not written, Local 6 News reported.

"Did you ever sign to or agree to anything that said I will not eat pork?" Holfeld asked Morales.

"Never," Morales said. "When I got hired there, they said we don't care what religion you are."

Being the solid American that she is, Morales has filed a lawsuit.

Orlando attorney Mark Nejame is close to the Muslim community, Local 6 News reported. He said Kweli's intentions may cross constitutional parameters, according to the report.

They're making it seem that if you don't follow a certain set of religious practices and beliefs then you're going to be terminated and that's wrong," Nejame said. "If this case prevails, what it will mean -- the implications of this case -- is it will eliminate accommodations of religion."

No, it won't. Morales is Catholic. If her religion required her to eat pork, then she'd have a case. But just because Catholicism has no rule against eating pork doesn't mean she must be accomodated by allowing her to do it.

Eugene Volokh explains:

There are a couple of good reasons for this. First, a contrary rule would itself be religious discrimination. If a secular employer is free to fire an employee for violating the employer's secular views about morality or decency (e.g., a secular employer fires an employee for adultery, for homosexuality, or for eating dog meat, which the employer finds disgusting or immoral), that's not illegal religious discrimination. There's just nothing religious there. Likewise, a religious employer should be equally free to fire an employee for violating the employer's religious views about morality or decency (e.g., for adultery, for homosexuality, or for eating pig meat).

We all have a sense of right or wrong, a sense of which lines should be crossed. Are religious one's the only one's that can't be crossed?

Second, for deeply religious employers, most of their decisions may be influenced by the employer's religious faith. If an employer fires an employee for treating coworkers unfairly, for being lazy, or even for theft, the employer's reasoning might be colored or even dictated by the employer's religion. If such religious influence made the employer's action into religious discrimination, religious employers would be highly constrained (again, in ways that secular employers would not be).

Now the firing may well be foolish, arbitrary, or unfair in the eyes of non-Muslims (or even of many Muslims), just as many people find firing based on sexual orientation to be foolish, arbitrary, or unfair. It may be the sort of thing that very few secular employers would do. But as a general matter, employers are still legally allowed to fire people even based on foolish, arbitrary, and unfair reasons, so long as they're not discriminating based on the employee's race, religion, sex, and other such attributes. So it seems that this employer was acting within its legal rights.

The notion that's slowly taking hand is that if I don't practice your religion, then your religious actions/beliefs can never affect me, because if they do, then my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are necessarily infringed. But taken to it's extreme, the notion that no act or law can be based upon religious motivations would require us to repeal the laws against murder and theft. (You know, the Ten Commandments and all that stuff.) But if you think about it, which religion isn't against murder or theft? Aren't they all? And if that's true, then it would only be those few who are non-religious, and who's moral conscience was also ambivalent to murder and theft, who would be affected. You know, murderers and thieves, that type. And so, to make certain the religious freedom of these people was not infringed, we'd have to repeal the laws against murder and theft, right?