This is based on a true story although a few of the details have been changed: When a diner at a Seattle restaurant ordered a New York Strip Steak from the menu, the waitress refused to serve him. Why? She is an animal rights activist and member of PETA and insisted that she is morally unable to serve meat. Instead, she referred the customer to another restaurant.
The waitress' union is not only defending the waitress in this instance, but also insists generally that restaurant wait staff should have the professional discretion to refuse to serve menu items that they find morally objectionable.
Discuss.
UPDATE: As I wrote at top "This is based on a true story although a few of the details have been changed". As many of you figured out, there is no actual case involving a waitress refusing to serve steak (at least none that I'm aware of), this is really about the controversy involving pharmacists refusing to fill certain prescriptions. Naturally, many readers find the actual pharmacists' moral objections more compelling than those of the hypothetical waitress. I'm inclined to agree with those who commented that if a customer seeks to purchase a legal product that the vendor wishes to sell, the vendor's employees are obligated to sell the product. An employee who is morally unable to serve her customer a legal product owes it to everyone involved to get a different job.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 05, 2006 10:26 AM | Email ThisPETA is a bunch of environmental, anti-human crazies. They want nature as long as it does not include human beings and our enjoyment. It's OK when a frog eats a mosquito, but not OK when a human eats a cow. Just like it's OK when Patrick Kennedy has an accident, but it's not OK when Dick Cheney has an accident.
Let's keep exposing these monsters for what they are, anti-human Marxists that are bent on destroying capitalism and the individualist American spirit.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 5, 2006 10:41 AMIf she does not want to serve what is on the menu then she can open her own place.
Posted by: BigV on May 5, 2006 10:50 AM2. The employer certainly has the right to dismiss her on the spot.
3. Unions are the handmaiden's of the devil
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 5, 2006 10:53 AMPeople should be allowed to do whatever they want.
What restaurant is this? I am never going to it.
"For every animal you don't eat, I am going to eat 3"
~Maddox~
There is this great website that sells a great T-shirt with this logo on it.
http://store.theworstpageintheuniverse.com/
In fact, in each example, it really depends on what the OWNER thinks. If the OWNER of the restaurant wants to sell meat, then this gal should find work elsewhere.
If a drugstore owner wants to sell the abortion pill, then an employee who objects ought to find work elsewhere, too. The union is wrong to defend this gal. THEY are wrong. When she starts signing the checks to pay workers at the restaurant, then maybe I'll care what she thinks!
Posted by: Misty on May 5, 2006 11:01 AMThat said, I conclude that in both cases, just as Jason Woodruff said above, she is free to work somewhere else, the owner/manager should be able to get rid of her, and of course any patron could take their business elsewhere.
Posted by: Mark D on May 5, 2006 11:12 AMIt would seem like she would get fired from her job though if the manager was called over. And if not, why would anyone go there.
Employees should be fired for not doing their job. If they are the owners, take your business elseware.
Seems pretty simple to me.
Posted by: BigV on May 5, 2006 11:48 AMYes, and if the owner allows her and others to do this....well I guess they don't really have meat on the menu. However, it doesn't sound like a real story.
Posted by: Erik on May 5, 2006 11:51 AM"Yeah, well, it pays the bills."
If this "waitress" had issues serving "meat" and she got another "waitress" to help the customer and the "restaurant" owner was okay with it, more power to her. Otherwise, as much I may agree with her, unless she owns the "restaurant", she works for someone else, and if part of her job description when she was hired was to serve "meat", then if she doesn't like, she needs to either open her own place up or go work for a place that won't require her to serve "meat".
Posted by: Mike H on May 5, 2006 11:59 AM"...as much I may or may not agree with her..."
Posted by: Mike H on May 5, 2006 12:04 PMPersonal story:
I was looking for a mole trap. I wanted the scissor type one, like my parents have, since I know it works. This salesperson (male) said to me, "You don't want that one, it is too cruel." I told him, "No, I did want that one. Since my wife bought the one that someone here recommended and it don't work!". It was nice to watch his face turn red.
Suddenly I feel like a steak for dinner!
Posted by: danno on May 5, 2006 01:14 PMTell that to the UAW as GM and Ford fade to black.
The only time this is acceptable is if the Religion of Peace decides that they will not serve pork or alchohol.
Posted by: Fred on May 5, 2006 02:24 PMThe Meat on the menu is not designed to kill a living thing. In fact just the opposite. The meat is designed to help a human LIVE.
The RU-86 is designed to KILL a living thing. It is NOT meant to help a human live.
If you want to have an accurate analogy, then the waitress must morally object to serve meat in a heavy ARSENIC sauce. Because that Arsenic will kill a human. And I whole-heartedly agree she has every right to do so.
Thanks!
Greg
Admittedly it is not as clear cut as doctors are usually specialists and their 'shingle' specifies the services provided. If a doctor goes to work at a place where abortion is provided and s/he does not perform the procedure on the shift, I would also assume the s/he would also be fired.
Posted by: Fred on May 5, 2006 02:30 PMThose who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one. -- Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: Person for the Eating of Tasty Animals on May 5, 2006 03:23 PMYou were on a roll, but the quote is from Benjamin Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson. I heard Ben really liked a big burger.
Posted by: Steven Donegal on May 5, 2006 03:38 PMFranklin...huh...my research says otherwise...can you send me your source?
Posted by: PETA on May 5, 2006 04:06 PMDoes Bartell’s have to start carrying porn? Christian bookstores carry Harry Potter and porn stores start carrying bibles? After all it is not your business to run but my feelings and convenience that should rule! State of Washington Damn that business to hell for not doing my bidding!!!
Ya liberals and leftists and moderates have no agenda, no paradigms...yep.....so afraid killing babies may be stopped.....no wonder we need illegals we are short 43 million 'Americans since 1973....if you were born after ’73 and can read this is that not freaky you survived and right now children are being killed at an insane rate.
Should Goldy be banned from blocking and deleting comments after all it impinges on my "free speech"??!?!?!
We all gotta leave well enough alone and roll with it when you gotta go down the road to planned death and get your pill. After all that guilty feeling should be telling you something.
Period.
The waitress didnt have to kill it, cook it or eat it. SHe ahd to serve it. For her to pull an attitude is ridiculous, Why become a waiter in a place that serves meat if that's an issue for you?
An employee in this case is a agent of the business and their personal feelings are irrelevent. She was being asked to break no laws, just serve food, provide customer service.
Kinda like the guy who got canned in Seattle for closing the resturant for the may day march. He violated the owner's wishes on his own principle, in an action that created a direct financial loss to the business. And he paid for it. He was responsible and he was fired.
He got what he deserved, and likewise she should have been canned too. On the spot.
But no doubt Ron Sims would have intervened to get her job back like he did the painters in Fife. I wonder if he has contacted Vance Wolf yet?
Posted by: karl on May 5, 2006 04:08 PMIt behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
I would agree, though, that if an establsihment that empolyees a pharmacist chooses to sell the pill, then the pharmacist should keep his mouth shut on the moral issue.
But based on the link, it sounds to me like what's going on is that the leftists are attempting to force pharmacies to distribute the abortion pill.
The proper analogy would then be that some "restaurant board" is trying to compel vegan restauranteurs to sell meat.
This, of course, would be an intolerable imposition upon liberty.
Posted by: ScottM on May 5, 2006 05:33 PMNationalize healthcare!
Posted by: Playin' Possum on May 5, 2006 06:32 PMSteve, there is a world of difference between not wanting to sell a steak to someone because you think that because of the color of their skin that they are somehow inferior, and not wanting to sell birth control pills because you believe that doing so is helping to kill innocent life. The two aren't even comparable.
Posted by: Mike H on May 5, 2006 08:06 PMWalmart has already been forced to sell these drugs as a business on the east coast and now they want to do the same here to Walmart and and anyone else who wants to excercise their right to not take part in killing innocent human life.
To compare a pharmacist choosing not to participate in the killing of an innocent HUMAN life to a PETA waitress refusing to sell what's on the menu to save a COW is either completely dishonest or you really do think there's a moral equivilence in killing cows for food and killing innocent humans for convenience. So which is it?
Posted by: Michelle on May 5, 2006 09:25 PMI think you miss the point of the analogy, Michelle. He wasn't saying there was a moral equivalence between killing a cow and killing an unborn baby. He was making the point that there are people who have deeply held moral, almost religious beliefs about killing animals and hold their lives to be as precious as that of human life.
If that person can be fired for refusing to partake in the end result of killing that cow, even if their job requires it, how is it then okay to not be allowed to fire a pharmacist for refusing to dispense birth control because their deeply held religious beliefs hold that that sperm and egg that hasn't even formed into an embryo yet is still a human being and using that birth control pill will kill that human life, even though their job requires it.
The arguement isn't about what the government is forcing employers to do, but about the rights of employers vs. the moral/religious beliefs of their employees. To bring up government forcing Wally World to sell the Pill is not part of the argument and thus completely beside the point.
Posted by: Mike H on May 5, 2006 09:50 PM(And we know what we do to crybabies, don't we.)
Posted by: George on May 5, 2006 10:54 PM(And we know what we do to crybabies, don't we.)
Posted by: George on May 5, 2006 10:54 PM(Please note, apparently I am being censored from using the word that starts with "ph" that means place where pharmacists work. I was not able to post this until I removed that word.)
I got the point alright. He was comparing the deeply held beliefs of PETA members who equate cows with humans and pharmacists who are skilled in the medical profession and believe that the union of a human sperm and a human egg form a human life and therefore morally object to participating in killing that human life. This is not limited to a religious belief.
Perhaps you haven't been following this debate and can only go by how its framed in that "sound institution?"'s rag, The Stranger. I've been following it since it started. The phar***y association (a private trade organization) put forth a conscience clause for its members that allows pharmacists and drug stores (is that better?) to refuse to supply drugs that violate their moral, religious or philosophical beliefs. Planned Parenthood got wind of this and immediately lobbied their gal pal Christine Gregoire to take immediate action. She responded to their plea by urging her appointed phar***y board (government agency) to take urgent action. This is the stage it's in. The government agency is now considering the phar***y association's own conscience clause and whether pharmacists/drug stores can excercise their right or if the board will make it state policy to require all pharmacists/drug stores to dispense all drugs perscribed (leaving no room for these professionals to excercise their conscience).
So the Walmart case has everything to do with this debate. What happened to Walmart on the east coast will happen to them here as well as any other drug store owner or employee wishing to excercise their conscience.
The fact is this debate is not about employer vs. employee. It is about government vs. employer and government vs. those who would stand in the way of the planned parenthood agenda.
Posted by: Michelle on May 5, 2006 11:09 PMAre you saying it's ok to not sell drugs to another person because you think his religion is inferior.
Is discriminating one's religious beliefs less offending than discriminating one's color.
Posted by: Steve on May 5, 2006 11:16 PMUh-oh! Somebody better alert PP and NARAL to come up with a new euphemism besides "pro-choice". We don't want phar***..er..drug stores to have choice.
Posted by: Michelle on May 5, 2006 11:29 PMIf we talk to an old-hand ONB/GYN as I did, we'd find out that human reproduction isn't so cut-and dried a thing.
Seems, fertile women don't drop one lone egg per cycle, they drop 16-18-20-24 or so. If there's active sperm around, lots of them get fertilized. Then it's a race to the finish line, the uterine wall. As soon as one ovoblast (fertilized ovum) implants, a shower of hormones are triggered that prevent further implantation. IOW, mom and kid conspire to abort any other fertilized ova.
A photofinish produces fraternal twins.
Get that: Mom and the first kid hormonally function to abort all the slow ones. So every pregnancy has destroyed lots of potential lives.
The morning-after pill just reduces the implantation number from one (and occasionally two) to zero. Nature does that quite often.
Don't believe me? Sit your OB/GYN down and make him/her tell you how it really works.
- Niccolo
Although it let me use "pharmacies" in my post.
As I see it,
Company "A" sells food
Company "B" sells pills
Company "A" refuses to sell food based on skin color = Discrimination
Company "B" refuses to sell pills based on religion = Discrimination
I think what your not seeing is that its not what your selling, its who your not selling to, whether its based on religion or color. In your analogy all someone would have to say is its against their religious beliefs not to sell something to a person based on ones skin color. Is that what your saying? Could a whole new religion be started on this concept of yours and be ok to you.
Now as far as your other argument as to selling something that may kill innocent life. Then that pharmacist should not sell other drugs, for example, ones that may cause drowsiness, as the patient may drive a car, fall asleep, and kill not only himself but other innocent life as well yey they still sell these drugs.
Posted by: Steve on May 6, 2006 09:55 AMRefusing to sell a product to anyone, regardless of who they are or what they believe, because that product violates your religious beliefs, by definition is not descrimination. By definition, discrimination means you are choosing one group of people over another, or choosing not to deal with one group, but dealing with another. If I choose not to sell a product at all to ANYONE, who am I descriminating against? Is it possible to descriminate against every person on the face of the planet?
So my question is, are you saying that people are not allowed to make business decisions based on their religious principles? That a Christian owner of a gas station must sell porn on his magazine rack, even though it's against his religion? Because by your standards, non-Christians are being descriminated against. If a Muslim owner of a deli refuses to sell pork because it violates his religion, is he descriminating against non-Muslims who have no qualms with a ham sandwhich?
If a family of Hassidic Jews (I know I misspelled that) open an store that sells professional electronics, and they operated their business very much in accordance with their religion, and shut the place down every Saturday for the Sabboth, and closed the place for every Jewish holiday you can think of... going so far as to not let their employees show up to work on those days, would those employees be descriminated against? Because they shut down on Saturday and numerous holidays, am I being descriminated because I can't buy something I need to run my side business on those days?
By the way, you can't just start a religion to discriminate against black people, or Jews, or whomever. It would never hold up in court as being a real religion, but a sham and a fraud. And the idea that a pharmacist that won't sell a bith control pill shouldn't sell other drugs that might kill someone because all drugs are dangerous is asinine. All drugs, when taken properly, help you, not kill you. If you get in a car crash because your driving right after taking sleeping pills and going to a bar (Rep. Kennedy), it's because you were reckless and didn't follow instructions. That is a long way from forcing someone to sell a pill they feel is designed for the specific purpose of ending an innocent life. By your standards, because my religious beliefs hold that killing innocent life is sin, should I then give up all my guns and my SUV? Lord knows those are potentually deadly.
Posted by: Mike H on May 6, 2006 01:18 PMThe pharmacist who had his job for years before this pill came out, and spent years before that studying for his profession should not be asked to give up his pension and other accrued benefits, as well as his salary, to appease those who want to kill a baby.
If the pharmacist took a job without asking if he'd be required to dispense the pill, that would be different. He should ask and look elsewhere if it would be required. But these people had this sprung upon them after they were in their careers for years.
And to equivocate the death of an innocent human baby with that of a dumb cow which was raised for one purpose is reprehensible.
Also, a waitress job doesn't even require a High School diploma in most cases. Your argument and moral equivalence are so thin they're transparent to any who would take a serious look.
Posted by: Republican (by default) on May 6, 2006 01:22 PMIt's like the twisting of the word 'choice' to fit your own ends and make what you're supporting sound morally superior. The choice comes when someone chooses to have sex. Pregnancy is a consequence of a choice, not a choice. If someone wants a choice about pregnancy, they need to make it before they jump in the sack. After that the choice is made and what follows are consequences.
And don't give me that 'what about rape and inc**t' meme. a) That's a separate issue. b) The frequency of it is far, far less than pregnancies that result from promiscuous and unprotected sex. c) The moral equivocation of the two also shows that your arguments are so flimsy that you have to grasp at straws and distort reality to find any support for your position.
Posted by: Republican (by default) on May 6, 2006 01:40 PMKeep grasping them straws.
Posted by: Steve on May 6, 2006 05:39 PMIt seems to me that the pharmacies themselves are being held responsible for choosing not to carry these drugs. I believe it was either Wal-Mart or Walgreens who were recently sued for this very thing. So how does the analogy above relate to this legal travesty?
Posted by: Dupper-D on May 6, 2006 09:52 PMI think you misunderstood your OB-GYN. It is typical for a woman to release one egg (ovum) during ovulation, however sometimes more (as in 2) and this is one way that multiples are potentially produced if they each get fertilised. The other way is for one ovum to split into 2 or even 3 producing identical twins or even identical triplets.
"The race to the finish" is not referring to the fertilised ova to implant in the uterine wall (that actually happens quite peacefully without a "race"), but is probably referring to the many sperm of which only one can fertilise an ovum, but obviously the more ova there are, the more the likelyhood of producing multiples.
But the release of "16-18-20-24 or so" is simply not natural. This can be the case however, if you are referring to in-vitro fertilisation or a woman who's taking fertility drugs which does unnaturally stimulates the release of more eggs. Which brings up a very good point in whether these practices are ethical. But save that for another discussion.
So to claim that "nature does this quite often" is simply false.
Yes, there is such thing as miscarriage just as there is such thing as early death in post-born children or adults with terminal illnesses. But this does not justify voluntarily destroying their life simply because their not convenient to us.
Posted by: Michelle on May 8, 2006 01:29 PMNo?
Well, I suspect that pharmacists who refuse to serve expectant mothers poison with which they will kill their babies are acting with a similar mindset.
Shark, how many more Mexican illegals will it take to replace the 50 million Americans that we have butchered in the last 33 years? Answer: Only about 30 million more.
If pharmacies want to fire a pharmacist for not filling a prescription, fine. But what about the independents, eg. Parks Pharmac(y) in Greenlake. What if they don't fill a prescription to murder? The state will force them too, right?!! And those who hold life lightly will jump on the bandwagon.
For one who will not buy into the lies of the King County elite you sure have bought into the much bigger lie of 'choice'
One in three Americans under the age of 33 is dead.
I doubt as a Jewish man that you support Nazis who killed one in three Jews. Hence the growing hatred of youth toward those who have murdered them. The baby boomers are passing on Shark. No burning of draft cards will save them from the grave. And when they are old, having taught the young that life is what man (or the men in power) define it to be what will those young then having come of age define your life to be?
How about this for a slogan?: Every senior should be a wanted senior.
Babies in the womb don't eat like me, they don't move about like me and they don't talk. Guess what Shark, my occasions of work with the aged have taught me that the aged often don't eat like me, they don't move about like me, and they often don't talk.
Checkmate.
You need Christ, Shark. You drip hypocrisy.
That you might be able to respond directly if you so desire it is courageoustimes@mchsi.com
Posted by: Jericho on May 8, 2006 09:47 PMAnd you need therapy...badly....soon!
Checkmate indeed....
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 8, 2006 10:09 PMLike the kid who wanted to shoot up Rogers High School, under your world view, 'you are nothing.' Statistically isn't that correct? What value does your d.n.a. have under your world view? Nil, or so close to nil as to be nil. This is the nihilist Nietchze style thinking that leads to mass slaughers, Soup and to a King County elite that just knows better and those the election ends justify the means.
Under my world view Alphabet you are so valueable that God would rather die than live without you. The reason that you don't see this is that you currently chose to close your eyes to that truth. And the reason for that, is that you do not sin, you are wise in your own eyes, you do not miss the mark (the definition of sin), you set the mark - hence King County elites are wrong, but you are not. Your mistreatment of your closest loved ones is justified because you set the standard Your mistreatment of street people is justified because you set the standard. Your mistreatment of lowly clerks is justified because you set the standard.
And when you set the standard Mr. Soup the standard is whatever you do. Get off God's throne Soup, it didn't work out so well when Satan tried to sit on it. But of course you don't believe in Satan either. No, the evil in the world is because the world is not living according to Soup's standard, there is no leading Being of evil leading the willing such as yourself (currently) to rebel against God and God's standards.
Who is it that needs therapy Soup? The guy who thinks there is a God greater than himself who sets standards such as the God given right to life, or the man who thinks that standards such as life are subjective? There is a way out Soup. Christ wants none to perish, but all to come to truth. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And the wages of sin is death. But while you were still a sinner Christ died for you, that whoever would believe in him would have everlasting life.
Choose life and live Soup.
Posted by: Jericho on May 9, 2006 10:49 AMAll those who don't are "doing fine".
Posted by: Michelle on May 9, 2006 03:21 PMSo far all of your comments have attempted to pick an argument with others based on nothing they actually said. So it's interesting that you accuse someone of holding a "simple world of views" since you fail to understand what anyone here is saying.
As Jericho said, babies in the womb ( nor even aged people) don't eat, move about or talk like him, so why would it be logical that he thinks they breath air like him? News flash: at conception (fertilisation), the baby has all of the DNA that it will have in his/her life. The sex, hair and skin and eye color are already determined and at 8 weeks they have a heart beat like you and me.
Posted by: Michelle on May 9, 2006 09:04 PMI was just wondering why he left out the breathing part. C'mon, walking, talking, eating. Why not compare something that actually is required to live on this beautiful planet of ours.
Posted by: Steve on May 9, 2006 11:23 PMSo if it isn't yet living, why does it need nutrition and oxygen? And if it isn't yet a human person, then please tell, what species is it? If you answer fetus or zygote, keep in mind that these are not species of their own, they are stages of life just as infant, toddler, child, adolescent, adult.
Posted by: Michelle on May 10, 2006 05:11 AMSometimes people argue just to be contentious....
Posted by: alphabet soup on May 11, 2006 08:09 AM"Plan B"
Isn't this drug designed to prevent the zygote from reaching the uterus where the placenta will then connect to the unborn and bring the nutrients and oxygen to the undeveloped embryo thus destroying your argument.
But thanks for seeing my logic on including breathing to Jericho's remarks.
and
Oh, is that what it will take for you to approve of abortions is a new species name.
Posted by: Steve on May 11, 2006 01:58 PMThe placenta is formed by an intricate working between the baby's and mother's hormones (the baby even has those) once the baby is implanted. But no, this doesn't blow MY argument out of the water. You're the one hinging your argument on what a person needs to live.
We all need different things at different stages. An infant only needs milk for nutrition, but if an adult or even a child past the age of 2 were to attempt to live on milk alone, he wouldn't last too long and he certainly wouldn't thrive the way an infant does. A zygote does not stay in that form for very long. If all goes well in pregnancy he naturally makes his way to the source of nutrition and oxygen he will need to survive for the duration in utero.
Interestingly enough though, I've seen photos of babies removed from ectopic pregnancies that have the appearance of a tiny baby rather than a clump of cells. So even without being implanted, they are technically still a zygote, yet have the ability to form and grow into an identifiable baby, though without the oxygen and nutrition they need, they cannot survive long.
Posted by: Michelle on May 11, 2006 09:18 PMAnd no, I'll never approve of abortion just because somebody comes up with a new species name.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."
I was just pointing out that zygote and fetus are just stages of life, not species other than human. I stand by my position that it's never OK to intentionally kill innocent human life, no matter what stage.
Posted by: Michelle on May 11, 2006 09:29 PMThank God I think about Him, for He is alive and doing fine.
Posted by: Jericho on May 11, 2006 09:38 PMWell written.
Posted by: Steve on May 12, 2006 10:31 AM