Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This time in Tennessee. The Worldnutdaily and lots of other right wing sites are in the midst of a full scale freakout over Tyson Chicken giving workers a Muslim holiday off rather than Labor day. They're missing just a few little facts. Like the fact that this was requested by the union at the plant, more than half of whose members are Muslim, 80% of whom voted for the contract. Volokh correctly blasts this ridiculous overreaction. Excerpt below the fold:
But more importantly, America was expressly not founded on the notion that immigrants should adapt to America's religious beliefs. Indeed, some of the most important early colonies were settled by people who didn't want to adapt to English religious beliefs, and while some of them did promptly try to expel or exclude people who wouldn't accept the colonies' new religious orthodoxy, thankfully that largely disappeared by the Founding of the nation, and religious tolerance -- including accommodation of minority religious groups -- continued to increase since then. Jews were allowed to come to America without rejecting their own religious beliefs (for an early and surprising legal accommodation of Jewish religious beliefs, see here). Quakers' and other groups' opposition to swearing oaths is expressly accommodated by several provisions in the Constitution, which allow affirmations instead of oaths. More recently, businesses and schools with large Jewish workforces or student bodies have set up some Jewish holy days as days off. The same should apply to Muslims.Not all religious beliefs, of course, have been accommodated, and not all should be accommodated. But requests from minority religious groups (including recent immigrant groups) for accommodation are a longstanding and respectable part of the American tradition of religious freedom. Where religious pluralism goes, multiculturalism is indeed a traditional American value. And the union vote at the Tyson plan is not "multiculturalism run amok" -- it's the American tradition of religious tolerance and religious accommodation working as it should be.
Quite right.
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Comments
There is a link to a WND poll about this burning issue. Perhaps we could 'PZ' the poll???
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | August 11, 2008 9:42 AM
By their logic, then, should all businesses and schools remain open on Christmas Day? Because getting your undies in a bundle for the granting of *one* religious holiday other than your own, when the entire K-12 and university system is set up with breaks around the 2 major Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter), is pretty much the height of hypocrisy.
Posted by: elissa | August 11, 2008 9:57 AM
>>>By their logic, then, should all businesses and schools remain open on Christmas Day?
Most Asian-owned businesses are (open on X-Mas).
I'm surprised that WorldNut hasn't gotten their bonnets in a snit over that one.
After all, America is a "Christian nation" so all persons (whether they are Christian or not) should bow down to it at all times.
Posted by: CHV | August 11, 2008 10:50 AM
WND is drumming up faux outrage against a major Democratic Party contributor? I'm shocked... SHOCKED I tell you!
Posted by: Abby Normal | August 11, 2008 12:21 PM
Wow, I don't care that the plant is giving a paid day off on a Muslim holiday I was just surprised that there were so many Somalis in Shelbyville Tennessee and that a labor union would not want "labor" day honored.
Posted by: Lance | August 11, 2008 12:26 PM
That story is already out of date. Tyson has taken the paid holiday for the Id-al-Fitr back and told employees they'll have to take a personal day for it instead:
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808090368
The comments on the original decision, at the local paper's website, are illuminating:
http://www.t-g.com/story/1449487.html
Posted by: nm | August 11, 2008 1:02 PM
Why anyone would care about the paid holidays of a chicken processing plant's employees is beyond me.
Again I was struck by the fact that 700 of 1200 employees of a semi-rural were Muslims (aparently not all Somali's as reported in the first article) although this number seems to vary depending which article you read.
I have reviewed a few wbesites that are blogging about this story. There are some that come from the "Amurican traditional values are being destroyed" angle. These are mostly xenophobic knuckle-draggers that have only read the headlines, or probably only other bloggers, of the story.
Talk about a tempest in a teapot.
Posted by: Lance | August 11, 2008 2:18 PM
That's not exactly accurate--they are giving them both Labor Day and Id-al-Fitr this year, and next year there will be one floating paid holiday that the employees can take whenever they want (Id-al-Fitr, birthday, etc.)
Posted by: Shygetz | August 11, 2008 3:09 PM
That's how the factory is spinning it. As I understand it, the employees there already had a yearly personal day, and could already use it to celbrate the Id. (Christmas was and remains, of course, a paid holiday there although the majority of the workers don't observe it.) This is a return to the status quo, and one which privileges the Christian employees, who don't need to use a personal day to celebrate their holidays.
As for why the Somalis are in Shelbyville, most of them are resettled refugees.
Posted by: nm | August 11, 2008 3:35 PM
A company I work for just gave the more prominent holidays off company wide. Then they had four "discretionary" days for the others. One could take these on those holidays, on a religious holiday of one's choice, your birthday, a wedding, whatever.
The difference between these days and vacation time is that vacation times could be shuffled around to make sure enough people were there at all times to cover the work, while these days could not.
So simple. No fuss, no bother, no pleading with the boss for the day off. Just let them know a few day in advance of the day you plan to take the kids to the baseball game. LOL
Posted by: Bill Ware | August 11, 2008 3:45 PM
Gee, Bill Ware, what a simple, sensible accommodation. Elegant, even. Everyone is covered and all that is necessary is to remember how many discretionary days one has left.
Brilliant!
I wonder, will it catch on?
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | August 11, 2008 8:15 PM
I know that WND routinely provides Ed with fodder in their articles, but today was the first time that I ever looked at the comments there (they were attached to their poll). I cannot believe the level of hatred and venom spewed out under the banners of "Patriotism" and "Christianity." I always believed that it was there, but the intensity of it was frightening!
Posted by: satcomguy | August 12, 2008 6:02 AM
Welcome to Ameristan!
This is all about "Christian" tribal nationalism. I put "Christian" in quotes there because people who understand the first word of Jesus' philosophy recognize how un-Christian the "Christian nationalists" are. Not to mention un-American.
Someone needs to call them on their tribal bull---- and shame them to the point where they don't go out in public for a week.
These people are engaged in the same kind of crude tribalism that we see erupting into warfare all over the planet. And mark my words on this: if we ever suffer sufficient erosion of the rule of law in this country, these people will lauch a civil war.
BTW, this is what comes of not teaching civics in school.
Posted by: g347 | August 12, 2008 9:12 AM