....Can't touch this....do do do do...do do..do do..
Posted on 03/03/2008 11:08:00 AM PST by greyfoxx39
Religious and cultural traditions collide in odd ways.
• Is it right to tell election poll workers, assigned to Mormon church meeting houses, to not bring coffee, sodas or anything else caffeinated to refresh themselves during their long day tending to voters?
-SNIP-
First, let’s look at the polling place duties and sipping Maxwell House in the meeting house.
Longtime Tempe poll worker Mary Ann Hemmingson has signed up to work the polls for the March 11 election. She’ll spend her 14- or 15-hour day in a church, but no longer one that belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I never sign up to work at a Mormon church because the board workers there are not allowed to have any caffeine on the premises,” she said. “That means no coffee in the morning and no Diet Coke in the afternoon. ... You don’t want to see what I look like without my daily dose of caffeine. It’s not a pretty picture.”
“The Word of Wisdom” portion of the Doctrine and Covenants, put forth in 1833 by church founder and prophet Joseph Smith, says that “hot drinks are not for the body or belly.” Add to that what H. Burke Peterson, first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, said in 1975: “We know that cola drinks contain the drug caffeine. We know caffeine is not wholesome nor prudent for the use of our bodies. It is only sound judgment to conclude that cola drinks and any others that contain caffeine or other harmful ingredients should not be used.”
Advising followers to restrict what they take into their bodies is one thing, but applying that mandate to those people who perform a public job inside their buildings in a one-day stint seems to be taking things too Far.
(Excerpt) Read more at eastvalleytribune.com ...
You answered your own question by citing the reason.
“IMO, it is certainly reasonable for a poll worker to expect to be able to have access to a LEGAL drink during a work shift of several hours, which was the original complaint.”
As the poll workers may choose not to work in any specific polling place, as per the article, that’s a non-issue. No poll worker is required to work in a polling place where he will be restricted from drinking coffee or coke.
“You get into the same area here as with muslims taxi drivers who refuse to carry certain passengers who have guide dogs or carry or have imbibed alcohol..LEGAL activities. The taxis are possibly the property of the drivers. Defensible? Questionable”
I see a big difference between that example and that of requiring someone to abstain from caffeinated beverages for a few minutes. In your example above, a person becomes incapacitated to get his luggage from one place to another. This goes beyond a minor inconvenience that will last only a few minutes. If the traveler is unable to find a non-Muslim taxi driver, he may be unable to obtain transport at all.
In the circumstances related in this article, we’re talking about something that is less than trivial. A few minutes without drinking one’s coffee.
What about the restriction against any food or beverage at my polling place? Is that an unreasonable burden on my voting rights?
Folks need to get real and recognize the real world differences between different circumstances.
sitetest
Isn’t logic WONDERFUL!
“I go weeks without a ‘nip’.”
I was kidding, with a sidelong glance toward those who (ridiculously) think that it is some sort of infringement on folks’ rights to require them to abstain from coffee for five or ten minutes while they vote.
sitetest
HMmmm...
Sounds kinda like Communion.
Used to be anyway.
We DO have them for the posters on FR!
True. Of course if they are desperate, they could always go out on the parking lot for their Starbucks hit.
Or, why shouldn’t we set reasonable rules of conduct for our own buildings?
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Drinking coffee is a sin ????
And yet sexual abuse of under age girls is not ?????
Okay, if you borrow somebody’s house and they require that you don’t smoke in that house, would you consider that an unreasonable rule?
I’m not going there with you. If you allow sexual abuse of young girls in your buildings, that’s your problem.
....Can't touch this....do do do do...do do..do do..
Calm down. We are all friends here. No attacks headed your way.
So, it’s acceptable if the owners of the polling place restrict your behavior for five minutes for reasons that are not religious? If, for example, they have a general rule of not having food or beverage in the facility for whatever reason - safety concerns; the carpets are new, they don’t want them sullied; they’re concerned that dropped morsels and drops will attract vermin; whatever - that’s okay, as long as those reasons aren’t religious?
Now you’re reaching into the minds and hearts of those whose facilities it is and telling them that they may only require restrictions for strictly secular reasons. Thus, you don’t really have a problem with the “no coffee” rule. You have a problem with its religious motivation.
I think that makes you a religious bigot.
Good luck with that.
sitetest
Poll workers who donate 14 to 16 hours of their day, who aren't allowed to leave the premisies where they are working, and are not allowed caffinated beverages as part of YOUR standard of conduct, and now your are comparing "starbucks" to drug addiction.
Absurd....simply absurd. Gotta LOVE it!!
You have a problem with its religious motivation.
I think that makes you a religious bigot.
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Honor killings
Oh how it pains me to post this, but I have to go with OMm on this one ... the whole ruckus sounds like a tempest in a water glass.
We have a winner!
AMEN!
We can SURELY be nice for a bit!
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