If doing your job is against your religious beliefs, you should be fired
A small, family-owned firearms business in Columbus, Ohio, ran afoul of a rogue U.S. Postal Service worker who decided that she was not going to process their legal shipment of a firearm to an out-of-state buyer.
Why did she refuse to even touch the package? The postal worker claimed, “Because of my religious beliefs, I cannot process your package.”
August 8th, 2013 at 8:14 pm
If doing your job is against your religious beliefs, why are you doing it? Find a job that doesn’t.
August 8th, 2013 at 9:21 pm
I’m an anesthesiologist.
I should be fired for declining to provide anesthesia for a legal 23-week elective abortion?
Hasn’t come up (yet… Obamacare), but IUD placement as part of a larger procedure has. IUDs work via several mechanisms of action, one of which is prevention of implantation of a fertilized embryo. Fortunately had time to find someone else to do the case.
August 8th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
If only the SCOTUS was bright enough to listen to Lysander Spooner, we would not have problems like this.
August 8th, 2013 at 9:58 pm
this just makes them look crazy so +1 propaganda points for us 🙂 do you really think this will stand long enough to kill L.E.P.D?
August 8th, 2013 at 9:59 pm
yes eric I would run with that if it was up to me
August 8th, 2013 at 10:27 pm
Eric, yes. You have every right to refuse to carry out a part of your job that conflicts with your personal religious beliefs, but you should not expect to be paid for a job you refuse to do. You should expect to be fired if you don’t take the initiative to resign in that case. Announcing that you will not do your job will be seen as a resignation by any competent boss anyway.
August 8th, 2013 at 10:40 pm
“If doing your job is against your religious beliefs, you should be fired”
No, they should just quit.
If you strongly feel abortion is wrong, would you work in a abortion clinic?
If you strongly feel drinking booze is wrong would you work in a beer barn?
So what is she doing working for the post office if she is so against guns?
August 8th, 2013 at 11:24 pm
It wasn’t against her religious beliefs. It was against her political beliefs.
August 8th, 2013 at 11:49 pm
One big difference between this woman and Eric is that she’s a government employee and he’s not….yet.
Also, if someone wants an abortion, they can always go pick a different anesthesiologist, or even pick a different hospital. But the USPS is a government mandated monopoly.
August 9th, 2013 at 8:50 am
There are many religions for whom handling weapons directly or indirectly is considered morally wrong or sinful. A guy in my bible study was raised Quaker. On a blowoff day between lessons, I brought my sword and some soda bottles and let the guys have fun. He took pictures but wouldn’t touch the sword. Ok.
It’s ok for the postal worker to recuse herself, but they are still required to provide that customer with postal service. Which means they need to call someone else out to handle the customer. Leaving him standing there is not acceptable. Making the customer call in to facility on the phone in order to get service is not acceptable. Should the employee be fired? If this becomes a pattern of behavior, yes. For the first offense a written reprimand or brief suspension without pay may be sufficient.
August 9th, 2013 at 10:43 am
Jeff the Baptist — Which is basically what ended up happening in this case. The employee “was talked to,” and “the situation will not be repeated,” according to the official post office representative who spoke to the reporter.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:59 am
PMG Franklin’s autobiography has an amusing passage on the Quakers, weaponry, and of all things, gambling. It’s worth looking up (as he may have said about grey cats).
I knew a registry clerk who rejoiced when USPS lost the CMP account. You don’t often hear a middle-aged female actually use the term “yucky.”
August 10th, 2013 at 7:41 am
I suspect when you inquire a bit into her “theology” you’ll find mere, thin pacifism and a vaporous concept of fuzzy-god, not the God. But, her excuse sounded good at the time, I suppose.
August 11th, 2013 at 8:57 am
I had a similar incident happen in 1981 in Frankfurt Germany at the APO I was returning to the States and wanted to ship rifles back to myself which is legal The clerk told me straight up i could not do it. I told the clerk as long as I was shipping them to myself I could. after checking with the NCOIC the clerk accepted the rifles and they all arrived safely