Another Stupid Lawsuit

This news story is ridiculous, but it's also a great example of the expectation some religious people have in regard to their beliefs and world around them. This guy should have never taken a job in public transit if he has religious beliefs that prohibit him from performing his duties.

A Texas bus driver has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, claiming he was fired for his religious beliefs after refusing to transport a client to a Planned Parenthood office, court documents showed Wednesday.

Edwin A. Graning worked for the Capital Area Rural Transportation System (CARTS) near Austin, Texas, for less than a year before he was let go in January. At the time, he told his supervisor that, "in good conscience, he could not take someone to have an abortion," according to the lawsuit. Graning is an ordained Christian minister.

(On a side note, anyone can become an ordained minister. Online. For free.)

Planned Parenthood, a health care provider that offers a range of medical services to women, including those related to abortion, often draws the ire of anti-abortion groups in the United States, where the procedure is legal but fiercely controversial.

So it would seem he had no idea why she was going to Planned Parenthood. It could have been for an abortion, but it could have also been for a medical check-up, a counseling appointment, to pick up medication, to take a pregnancy test, or to utilize any number of other services. Planned Parenthood is a pretty busy place. It is not, as some might have you believe, an abortion factory.

He is seeking reinstatement, back pay, and compensatory damages for pain, suffering and emotional distress.

"It's only because he voiced his religions beliefs that he was canned," Edward White III, Graning's lawyer, told CNN. "Employers have a legal responsibility to at least attempt to accommodate an employee's religious beliefs. ... CARTS clearly violated Mr. Graning's religious freedom."

White, who works for a public interest law group founded by evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson, said CARTS sent a second driver to collect the client and took her and a friend to the Planned Parenthood office.

Uhhhh, no, it is not only because he voiced his religious beliefs - that's just kind of annoying and better kept to yourself. Dude got fired because he refused to do his job. Did no one point this out to you? Oh, wait -

"While others may wish to make more of it, to CARTS this is just about our expectation that employees perform the duties they are hired for," David Marsh, general manager of CARTS, said in an e-mail message to CNN.

In addition to rides along fixed routes, CARTS offers some door-to-door service within its rural coverage area.

The lawsuit, in the U.S. District Court for western Texas, Austin Division, was filed on July 14.

I hope this guy doesn't win. I don't see how he could, really. When I worked in a deli, I was a vegetarian, but that didn't mean I had the right to refuse to slice lunch meat. The only way I would have had the right to refuse to do that aspect of my job is if I had told my boss that I was unable to perform that aspect of my position because of those beliefs and was hired anyway with the understanding that I wasn't going to cut any meat. So unless the guy told CARTS that he wasn't able to drive people in some instances because of his religious beliefs, he would have been hired under the pretense that he was able to perform his work duties regardless of what his religious views are.

Even ignoring that, it seems to me the guy didn't actually have any grounds to refuse to do his job even if his religious opposition to abortion was something that legally had to be worked around because he had no way of knowing that's what she was going to Planned Parenthood to have done.

Terrorists, Christians, Privilege and Rights.

I am a self identifying liberal, so I was super delighted when my fiancé sent me a picture he took the other day:

Oh please, buddy, call yourself a wahhhbulance and shut up. I wish I could talk to this person and just ask him/her what rights they seriously feel terrorists have that Christians don't.

I have a sneaking suspicion, though keep in mind this is all conjecture on my part, that the 'rights' this person is referring to in regard to terrorists is something we would all identify as the rights outlined in the constitution while the 'rights' this person is referring to in regard to Christians is something everyone who isn't Christian would identify as 'privilege'.

The problem with privilege is that the ones who have it aren't going to be the ones who see it. Not until those privileges start getting taken away. Some Christians, like sticker person here, have a hard time dealing with the fact that while they are taught by their religious leaders that they are persecuted, there is a mountain of evidence that exists as proof to the contrary. Sticker person here seems like the kind of Christian that will earnestly argue that because their parents were allowed to say, pray in school, that they should be allowed to do the same and in fact, not letting them do it is somehow violating their 'Christian rights.'

But there are no Christian rights. In fact, the rights we have as Americans were pretty carefully spelled out so that they would apply to everyone equally. The very notion of Christian rights is entirely un -American.

I know, somewhere in Oklahoma a fundigelical's head just exploded.

Look, in the unlikely event that a known terrorist wanted to, for example, pray in school, guess what? He or she would be told the same thing as any other person - sorry, that's illegal according to the establishment clause of the United States constitution.

If a Christian were to commit an act of terrorism (and there are plenty of examples of Christian terrorists, by the way), they would be treated the same as any other terrorist - they would be arrested and put on trial.

I know, it's just a damn sticker and it's meant to be glib and snarky and if that's all it's meant to do, then ok. Nonsensical statements can be hilarious. But it seems like there's some point trying to be made as well and if that's the case, then somebody fill the bathtub cuz we got a fail whale coming in for a landing.