Religion vs. Rights in An Election Year, Heaven Help Us
"Historically we have made accommodations for people with religious convictions," Huckabee said. "You've seen it in Michigan where they spent $25,000 providing foot baths for Muslims students." He also mentioned the prayer mats given to Muslim detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
When asked again, Huckabee repeated that people try to make accommodations wherever they can. "Sometimes maybe it can't be done," he said, "but in this case there was no attempt to make an accommodation to Kim Davis."
Actually there was. Other Kentucky clerks who have religious objections to same-sex marriage have been able to delegate the issuing of licenses to their deputies. But Davis interpreted her individual right to refuse as a reason to bar anyone else in her department from issuing marriage licenses, too.
When her incarceration freed her deputies to issues licenses, the judge let her walk.
Stanley's case has a little different twist. The 40-year-old has been a flight attendant with Atlanta-based ExpressJet Airlines for three years but converted to Islam two years ago, according to the Washington Post.
In June, she asked her supervisor at ExpressJet for a religious accommodation, asking if another attendant could serve drinks while she did something else. At first the accommodation was made, according to her EEOC complaint. But in early August another employee filed a complaint and later in the month the airline reversed itself.
Stanley was placed on administrative leave without pay for 12 months, according to her complaint, and could be terminated.
Kim Davis made news by flatly refusing as an act of conscience to do the job to which she was elected. Stanley, according to her complaint, asked for an accommodation and received it, only to have it taken away.
If Huckabee and his allies are ready to rally to Davis' defense, they should be no less supportive of Stanley -- or does fairness take a back seat to politics in election years?
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
