| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Jury backs firm in denying time for Muslim's prayer |
| 2004-09-18 |
| Whirlpool was within its rights to tell a Muslim plant employee that he could not take a few minutes a day to say his religion's required sunset prayers, a federal jury decided yesterday. The decision was a rebuff to Somali-born plaintiff Ibrahim Farah. Whirlpool argued that allowing the practice for all its Muslim employees would have been too disruptive at its La Vergne assembly plant. ''I thought that a religion was trying to dictate to a private entity,'' said juror Gordon Stannerd. The three-day trial before U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger culminated two years of litigation that pitted a religious duty against the production schedules of an air-conditioner manufacturing line. The eight-member jury took about an hour to reach its decision yesterday. Attorneys for Farah had described Whirlpool's refusal to allow their client about five minutes of prayer each evening as evidence of religious discrimination. They argued that the plant where Farah worked from 1996-2001 was rife with prejudice against Muslims who took seasonal jobs at the Whirlpool factory. But David J. Parsons, Whirlpool's lead attorney, countered that the corporation had welcomed its growing number of Muslim employees and had accommodated their religious needs, implementing dietary changes at the company cafeteria and permitting headdresses as long as they were within safety guidelines. Fierce competition had forced the company to trim its salaried employees drastically, he said, at a time when its ranks of seasonal workers were rapidly filling with Muslims such as Farah. Having as many as 40 Muslims at one time leave the assembly line to pray for a few minutes each evening was more than Whirlpool could reasonably allow, Parsons said. The jury agreed. |
| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |
| #6 If you make allowances for the religious needs of muslims to take time off the assembly line to make evening prayers, what do you tell charismatics when they want to handle serpents on the line? Maybe if you let them handle serpents while the muslims pray...... |
| Posted by: RWV 2004-09-18 10:42:44 PM |
| #5 Farah had testified in the same courtroom where he once took the oath to become an American citizen. He had survived the civil war in his native East African home, fled as a refugee to Kenya and eventually settled in Nashville in 1994. He testified that he was torn between following his faith and earning a paycheck at one of the few good jobs he could find in Nashville. Did anyone else have the word "ingrate" spring to mind? Let's examine the facts: Another country allows you to successfully immigrate from your wartorn sh!thole of a birthplace. They award you citizenship and an employer bends over backwards to accomodate your religious beliefs. You're getting a good paycheck and yet none of the foregoing munificence can possibly restrain you from squalling about how you should be given a chance to drag down all of your coworkers' productivity because your religion's eggshell collective ego commands that you prostrate yourself repeatedly each day as a confirmation of your piety. At some point naturalized citizens should be able to have their status revoked due to a failure to integrate. Ibrahim Farah sounds like a great place to start, then we should work down the rank and file of CAIR. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-09-18 8:10:17 PM |
| #4 Oops on me. I meant the plaintiff's lawyer didn't do a good job of vetting the jury, of course. Is it morning already? ;-{ |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-09-18 12:05:37 PM |
| #3 I'd let 'em kiss the ground if they need too, else they'll be rolling their eyeballs and that brings workmans comp issues. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-09-18 11:52:49 AM |
| #2 Would the plaintiff prefer: allow them to pray, but allow the company to discriminate against those who take time off to pray? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-09-18 11:29:40 AM |
| #1 Oops! Looks like the defense didn't do a very good job vetting the jury. They should have gotten fewer normal people and more PC moonbats. Who don't actually, you know, work for a living. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-09-18 11:16:48 AM |