Time Immortal

When you take a job at a bookstore, an implicit part of the agreement that you make with your employer is that you will gladly and without reservation sell to the customers of the bookstore any book, newspaper, or magazine that they desire to purchase.

If you can’t do that, then you should quit…or else your employer should have the balls to fire you.

Shopper Sally Friday felt publicly humiliated at a branch of when she tried to pay for First Bible Stories as a gift for her young grandson.

When she put the book on the check-out counter, the young assistant refused to touch it, declared it was unclean and summoned another member of staff to serve instead.

Mrs Friday said she was so upset that she has now complained to the store’s management.

Last night politicians and religious leaders supported her in condemning the high street giant and reigniting the debate over religious beliefs in the workplace.

Conservative MP Philip Davies said the refusal to serve Mrs Friday, 69, was “unacceptable” and “damaging” to community relations.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, described the assistant’s comments as “offensive” and called for Marks & Spencer to carry out a thorough investigation.

Mrs Friday said her trip to the sales in Reading, Berks, with her daughter had been ruined.

“I went to the till and heard the girl say it was unclean and then she got someone else to serve me,” said Mrs Friday.

“At first I wasn’t sure what was going on and then I realised she was wearing a headdress and I clicked that the title of the book had Bible in it. I felt very humiliated and immediately left the store.“

Mrs Friday, from Old Basing, Hants, added: “I have given it careful thought and still feel humiliated that, because I am purchasing a children’s Bible story book, a cashier is able to object and refuse to put it through the till.

“Had this been a copy of the Koran I am confident any Christian person would be happy to do her job, and for this to happen in a Marks & Spencer of all places beggars belief.

“I am not racist but I have vowed never to let a person wearing a headdress serve me again. It will be a long, long time before I shop again at M&S.” Mr Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, West Yorkshire, said: “I find it unbelievable. We are a Christian country. I’m afraid it is no good for people to work in Marks & Spencer and not serve their products.

Now there’s an interesting thought. Obviously a person has a right to attire him or herself as he or she feels is fitting. But equally, other people have the right to patronize — or refuse to patronize — businesses or sales counters at businesses staffed by persons who have made such decisions about their attire, especially if what that attire stands for is distasteful and/or incompatible with Western ideals.

I don’t know any way to put this delicately, so I’ll just say it plainly: Muslims who get antsy about the issue of something being ‘unclean’ need to grow the heck up and get a better religion…because ultimately, to declare something as being unfit to handle on the basis of it being ‘unclean’ is to betray an inherent and damning flaw in one’s faith. If Allah is all-powerful and merciful, Muslims need not worry that touching a Christian book will make them unclean; Allah is, after all, supposedly more powerful than the devil, and being one of the righteous people of Allah should be stronger than any blemish that rests upon an object.

Then again, perhaps that’s not the real issue here? From the sidebar at the same site as the above article:

By its very nature, Islam makes it extremely difficult for Muslims to integrate. Islam means submission, and the Quran makes it clear that Muslims expect non-Muslims to submit to Islam. Western values are not compatible with Islam.

And Western religion is, it seems, better and more mature.