Porkin' it...

When I first saw this article on the woman in Florida fired for eating Pork at a Muslim company, I thought "just another example of people trying to impose their religion on other people".

When I thought about it some more, I'm not so sure. After all, it's not like her religion required her to eat pork. She's not being stopped from expressing her religion, she's being stopped from doing something that she wants to do that happens to be against another religion.

As much as I love meat, it doesn't seem that oppressive to not be able to eat pork at work. After all, there are plenty of things that I would like to be able to do at work but can't - light up a big fat cigar, come to work wearing shorts and birkenstocks, drink a pint of guiness with dinner. None of these relate to my religion in any way, but they are part of the job, they are things I knew when I started working here, and I accept that because I like having a job so I can have a roof over my head and food on my plate.

The impression I get from the article is that she took the job knowing that they had a no-porkin' policy, that she was warned about it, and still kept doing it. If she didn't want to workin in a no-porkin' zone, she shouldn't have taken the job. She wanted to have it both ways - get whatever benefits and higher pay the job offered over others, but not follow it's policies.

I can see how not being allowed to do something your religion requires is discriminatory, but I don't see how not being allowed to do something your religion allows is discriminatory, even if it's restricted based on someone else's religion.