Muslim barber refuses to cut hair of lesbian: Whose rights trump whose?

Discussion in 'Civil Liberties' started by Wehrwolfen, Mar 10, 2014.

  1. Wehrwolfen

    Wehrwolfen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    By Howard Portnoy
    03/03/2014

    Being a believer in all -isms can get hairy at times. Take as an illustration a case reported in the Toronto Sun by Ezra Levant:
    (http://www.torontosun.com/2012/11/16/gay-activists-have-met-their-match-with-muslim-barbers)

    So a lesbian walks into a Muslim barbershop, and asks for a “businessmen’s haircut”.
    It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it really happened, and now a government agency called the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario will hear her complaint.
    Faith McGregor is the lesbian who doesn’t like the girly cuts that they do at a salon. She wants the boy’s hairdo.
    Omar Mahrouk is the owner of the Terminal Barber Shop in Toronto. He follows Shariah law, so he thinks women have cooties. As Mahrouk and the other barbers there say, they don’t believe in touching women other than their own wives.​


    The incident occurred in Canada in November 2012, but it could easily happen here and now. Let’s take a state at random — say Arizona — and graft on the same scenario. Gay rights activists usually tend to be protectors of adherents to America’s lone “diverse” religion, Islam, so where do their sympathies lie?

    This question is a real head scratcher in Canada, which passed a Multiculturalism Act in 1988, paving the way for an influx of immigrants with medieval attitudes toward second-class citizens (read: women and gays). Faith McGregor belongs to both groups.

    How to resolve this this “human rights” impasse? Levant envisions a hierarchy similar to the one found in the game of poker, except in this case based on some ad hoc notion of degrees of political correctness. He quips:
    A white, Christian male has the lowest hand — it’s like he’s got just one high card, maybe an ace. So almost everyone trumps him.
    A white woman is just a bit higher — like a pair of twos. Enough to beat a white man, but not much more.
    A gay man is like having two pairs in poker.
    A gay woman — a lesbian like McGregor — is like having three of a kind.
    A black lesbian is a full house — pretty tough to beat.
    Unless she’s also in a wheelchair, which means she’s pretty much a straight flush.
    The only person who could trump that would be a royal flush. If the late Sammy Davis Jr. — who was black, Jewish and half-blind — were to convert to Islam and discover he was 1/64th Aboriginal.
    So which is a better hand: A lesbian who wants a haircut or a Muslim who doesn’t want to give it to her?​


    Joking aside, when government attempts to decide which protected class of citizens is more aggrieved in cases like this, they run into trouble. The only “out” is to look the other way, which is what liberals have been doing here for years. The question of tolerance for one protected group over another arose during the murder trial of George Zimmerman, when the prosecution’s star witness Rachel Jeantel intimated under cross-examination that Trayvon Martin was anti-gay. Do you recall any marches by the Lambda Society or GLAAD denouncing blacks for their Stone Age view of homosexuality? Nah. Instead, liberals buried their heads in the sand, waiting till the news cycle moved on to other headlines. Hypocrisy much?

    Source:
    http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/0...es-cut-hair-lesbian-whose-rights-trump-whose/

    True story and how should it turn out? Should the Lesbian get her hair cut as demanded and the Muslim castigated for allowing his religious rights come before Lesbian rights? How would you handle this. Whose civil rights are being violated? Want to buy a gay wedding cake? Watch the video...
     
  2. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    Really simple.

    Depends on the law where the incident happened.

    If the law does not allow business's to discriminate against a person for their sexual preferences, then the barber was legally wrong.
    If the law does allow business's to discriminate against a person for their sexual preferences, then the barber was acting legally.

    Should a person be able to deny a black a room by claiming renting a room to a black is forbidden by his religion? Nope.

    Same principle.
    \\
     
  3. Cdnpoli

    Cdnpoli Banned

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    We do things a bit differently in Canada. This Muslim guy is in a lot of trouble.
     
  4. Cdnpoli

    Cdnpoli Banned

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    Sounds like they resolved this.
    http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/0...fused-to-give-woman-haircut-quietly-resolved/

    Months after a Toronto woman filed a human rights complaint against a Muslim barber who would not give her a haircut, the issue has been quietly resolved.

    During a closed-door mediation session Friday, Faith McGregor and barbershop owner Omar Mahrouk came to an “arrangement” that satisfied them both, thus putting the controversial complaint to rest.
     
  5. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The actual case seems fairly straight forwards, though it also seems to be more about gender than sexuality (but hating homosexuals sells better than hating women). The fact the objection was relgious based shouldn't make any difference and nor should the fact the barber was Muslim.

    That kind of leads to a deeper problem here. The articles written about this aren't about seeking solutions to people in a diverse society living together but are actively seeking to increase conflict between nominal groups of people, promoting the idea that cases like this are about people winning (and loosing), one group being more important or having more rights than another.

    I suspect many of the hacks are doing this just because it's the kind of thing that makes for dramatic headlines, grabs reads and so makes them money (the "sell their own grandmother" types). Others I'm sure are working on the flawed assumption that everyone else is like them in hating anyone who is different.
     
  6. Wehrwolfen

    Wehrwolfen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't think you viewed the video as recommended by your response.
     
  7. Wehrwolfen

    Wehrwolfen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not according to Sharia Law...
     
  8. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    require them to put a sign on the door in big letters saying who they will not serve... then watch their business fail as there is not enough bigots in the world that would want to do business there if they knew the truth up front

    how would the Muslim's feel if people told him they did not want to service him because he was Muslim, how about if airlines stopped serving Muslims...?

    .
     
  9. Wehrwolfen

    Wehrwolfen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What you are claiming is restricting a person's religious laws and beliefs. Your 'if' doesn't hold water.
     
  10. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    Ya think? I don't need to watch whatever 'video' you post to respond effectively- the same principles apply regardless

    Really simple.

    Depends on the law where the incident happened.

    If the law does not allow business's to discriminate against a person for their sexual preferences, then the barber was legally wrong.
    If the law does allow business's to discriminate against a person for their sexual preferences, then the barber was acting legally.

    Should a person be able to deny a black a room by claiming renting a room to a black is forbidden by his religion? Nope.

    Same principle.
     
  11. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    nope, maybe the pilot is Christian and doesn't want to fly Muslims around, or the piolet is Muslim and doesn't want to fly people that drink so kicks them off the flight if they order alcohol
     
  12. Casper

    Casper Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    First off this is Canada, not the US. Secondly, Muslims are not supposed to be touching women not in their family, so that is that. Oh, just curious how would he know she is a Lesbian, was his gaydar working overtime?
     
  13. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    So, acknowledging that, are you saying the barber had a right to deny service to a woman because she was a woman?
     
  14. Wehrwolfen

    Wehrwolfen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's happened in NYC. Muslim cab drivers refusing to drive men making out together.
     
  15. Colonel K

    Colonel K Well-Known Member

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    I would imagine most cabbies would refuse to drive anyone who was making out.
     
  16. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    yep and in pharmacies as well with Christians denying to fill dr ordered prescriptions


    .
     
  17. JavisBeason

    JavisBeason New Member

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    in a perfect Karma universe, that would always happen... yet, when Brotha's fashions in my hometown has successfully catered to JUST 21% of my county's demographic, in both hiring and serving for over 10 years.... I would suggest it doesn't always work that way
     
  18. Unifier

    Unifier New Member

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    That's not very tolerant, is it?
     
  19. The Amazing Sam's Ego

    The Amazing Sam's Ego Banned at Members Request

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    His religious rights should come before the customer's rights. Either way, I still believe that the woman should just get her haircut at a different place, and not waste her time suing someone who doesn't want to give her a haircut.
     
  20. Wehrwolfen

    Wehrwolfen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not according to Gay Rights proponents, look at what they've just done to the CEO of Mozilla. Should the minority be allowed to force others into submission? Then look at it the other way. There's Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby. Then there's photographer and the baker being persecuted by gays. Muslims routinely for Christians either to become followers of Islam or face beheading. Are either right? I don't think so. There has to be a median ground.
     
  21. twed

    twed Banned

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    any bizman has the right to deny service to anybody. You have NO right to make somebody work, period.
     
  22. raytri

    raytri Well-Known Member

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    No, they don't. A restaurant cannot refuse to serve blacks (or whites) or women (or men). A bank cannot refuse to take deposits from Jews (or Christians, or Muslims). They, like barbers, are considered "public accomodations" that must serve everyone who walks in their door unless there is some other mitigating circumstance (the customer is drunk, or confrontational, stuff like that).

    If you can't live up to that, you have two choices: provide some sort of workaround to accommodate your personal problem (have someone else cut the woman's hair, for instance), or don't start a business that requires you to serve the public.
     
  23. The Amazing Sam's Ego

    The Amazing Sam's Ego Banned at Members Request

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    What's your idea of a median ground?
     
  24. Wehrwolfen

    Wehrwolfen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I guess we'd have to rely on that thing that's being shredded by the current regime in America. It's called The U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the law as interpreted by Blackstone.
     
  25. leekohler2

    leekohler2 New Member

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    Yep- that's exactly what they're doing.

    Sharia Law is not the law in Canada.
     

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