Yes, Muslims have changed US culture
Reader comment on item: Muslim Populations in European Cities
in response to reader comment: But what does it really mean?

Submitted by MaryAnne Evans (United States), Dec 31, 2007 at 14:54

Andrew posted: "Dearborn, Michigan has a lot of muslim immigrants but does that change the US?"

Yes, I'm afraid it has. For example, Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport refused to transport passengers who were carrying alcohol (e.g., that they had purchased at a Duty-Free shop). There were also reports of Muslim cab drivers refusing to transport blind people with seeing-eye dogs (since many, though not all, Muslim clerics teach that dogs are unclean and therefore "haram", or forbidden, in Islam).

Only after a lot of non-Muslim citizens protested to the airport management did they force the cab drivers to comply with airport regulations. Target stores in the Midwest have also allowed Muslim cashiers to refuse to ring up pork products for non-Muslim customers--yes, there have been Muslim Target employees who've refused to ring up customers' bacon, pork chops, etc.

In my own town, I personally know of a hair salon (which I used to patronize) where a Muslim hair stylist tried to kick a customer's elderly (at least in his late 60s) husband out of the salon while he waited for his wife to get her hair done. This woman wanted to practice her skills and earn money in an American salon but wanted to impose Islamic values on the mostly non-Muslim clientele. (The customer's husband refused to leave, incidentally, but the arrogance of that stylist still stuns me.)

While you might say, "What's the big deal?", I have no doubt that had the cab drivers in Minneapolis gotten away with their boycott of alcohol-carrying passengers or people with guide dogs, they would next have refused to transport gays, lesbians, unescorted single women, Orthodox Jews, etc., etc. Why not?

As far as the Target cashiers, can you imagine the outcry that would arise if, say, a Christian, Jewish, atheist, etc. refused to ring up an Islamic item (say a copy of the Koran) for a Muslim customer? Or if a non-Muslim stylist in a salon were to say, "I don't want to spend time creating a nice hair style for you since you're just going to cover it up with a headscarf afterwards?"

Finally, I live in an area with a substantial Muslim minority but a far larger Hindu population; however, I've yet to hear of a Hindu employee anywhere refusing to ring up meat products for a non-Hindu!

Just because things are not nearly as bad here as in Europe with regard to Muslim immigration, please don't think your civil liberties can't or won't be impinged upon at some point.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.