Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 4)

I will tackle the story surrounding Sweet Cakes by Melissa in this post. "Sweet Cakes by Melissa" is a cake shop that was heavily penalized for refusing to cater a same-sex wedding, which they felt was against the principles of their religion. The rules in this post are the same as in last week's post: I will assume familiarity with the story. I will take only the Wikipedia article as it appears today (9/28) as canon. I care more about what is right rather than what is legal. And lastly, my chief concern is the application of the principles governing the interaction between the majority and the minority. As before, these principles are reproduced below for reference:
I believe that people have a right to the free exercise of their religion. This is actually only a small slice of a broader principle: that people have a right to live according to their identity.  
Conversely, it is wrong to require people to violate their conscience, their gender, their sexual orientation, their people's history, or other such categories that form one's core identity.  
I believe that the many - whether it be a large corporation, society at large, or simply "the majority" - also has a right to impose order and insure its own smooth operation.
Conversely, it is wrong for an individual or a minority group to disrupt the workings of the majority to satisfy their own needs.
I believe that, in case of a conflict, a balance should be struck. We should take the concerns of all parties into account and weigh them together to achieve a fair solution.  
Conversely, I am against one side simply imposing its will on the other. I will oppose actions whose chief goal is to forcefully restrict the freedom of others, whether it comes from the minority or the majority.  
I believe in cooperative, common-sense solutions characterized by nuance and empathy. 
Conversely, I am against ham-fisted, absolutist, or antagonistic decision making processes.  
Of course, we will not always find perfect solutions that perfectly satisfy all these principles. But especially in such cases, I believe that we should take special care not to favor the strong over the weak, the large corporation over the individual employee, the majority over the minority, or profits over personal rights.
Let's get right to it: first, the owners of the cake shop have a right to free religious exercise. They should not be forced to participate in an activity that violates their sincerely held beliefs.

But the State of Oregon also has a right to enforce its 'equal accommodation' law, and the same-sex couple has a right to walk into any public business and expect and receive that equal accommodation.

So that is the conflict. How can we resolve it? As before, it would be wrong to simply allow one party to unilaterally impose its will upon the other. That is to say, it would be wrong to simply allow the owners of the cake shop to refuse service, and it would also be wrong to simply force them to violate their conscience and cater the same-sex wedding. Both sides must be taken into account in our solution.

So how can we balance the rights of both parties? Is there a way to protect both the cake shop's free exercise of religion, and the same-sex couple's equal accommodation? I believe there is. In fact, there are multiple, simple ways to preserve the rights of everyone involved in a live-and-let-live fashion, without antagonizing anyone.

The easiest way is to simply outsource the job. Make some arrangements with another cake shop that does not mind catering same-sex weddings, then simply let all customers know that any personalized cake order may be filled by that shop. The owners of the original cake shop would then take the order from the same-sex couple, and hand off the job to the other shop. The customers won't even have to know why this happened. The cake shop wouldn't have to cater a same-sex wedding, and the same-sex couple gets their cake without a hitch.

What if the same-sex couple were to insist on the order being filled by the original cake shop? I think this is an unreasonable demand, for multiple reasons. First, it seems likely that the motivation behind such a demand is "We want to violate your conscience", and not "we want equal accommodation". I am against motivations like these, which seeks to forcefully restrict the freedom of others. As long as the service and the customer experience is not meaningfully different between homosexual and heterosexual couples, the customer's rights have been satisfied and they do not get to furthermore demand that the inner workings of the business itself must conform to their ideology. In addition, such a demand would suggest that the cake shop is not really a public accommodation - that they are more like an artist with a unique, singular talent whom the couple is commissioning for a new project. And of course, the artist is free to accept or reject any new projects in such cases.

On the other hand, what if the cake shop were adamant in not serving the same-sex couple, in any way? This, too, is unreasonable. This position may look like they're saying "we want to make your wedding difficult" rather than "we want to obey our conscience". The fact of the matter is that the cake shop, by refusing to serve the same-sex couple, did cause them some amount of actual inconvenience. They wasted their customer's time and nullified their efforts. This is an actual, material harm that they caused to the couple, and it must be compensated for.

What would be the right amount of compensation in such cases? This, too, can be framed in terms of the principles listed at the beginning: the cake shop has the right to free exercise of their religion and the same-sex couple has the right to equal accommodation. So, if the cake shop has not made any previous outsourcing arrangements, or if their beliefs are so rigid that they cannot even bear to take an order from the same-sex couple, what should happen? The answer is straightforward, at least in theory: the couple should receive enough compensation to restore their experience to be on par with "equal accommodation".

Note that this is a second-best solution, after the "outsourcing" solution mentioned above. Because it is a second-best solution, where the cake shop's demands are higher, the implementation will be much messier and the compensation to the couple must be correspondingly higher. To determine the appropriate level of compensation - enough to make up for the couple's time and effort and achieve "equal accommodation" - let us consider the following two scenarios:
Scenario 1: you walk into a cake shop, then order a cake without any problems. 
Scenario 2: you walk into a cake shop, receive X dollars, and are turned away. You then order the cake from elsewhere.
The value of X that makes us equally likely to choose either scenario is the proper compensation. My gut feeling on this is that about $60 should be sufficient to cover most cases. Of course, that value is subject to refinement pending further consideration.

It's important to note that the same-sex couple doesn't simply get to choose their own value of X, as that obviously has a massive potential for abuse. X should therefore be based on what the population, as a whole, would choose in such scenarios. Also note that this solution assumes a civil business-customer interaction: words like "bigot", "abomination", or "homophobe" are assumed to have not been thrown around. If they were, that could be handled separately. Lastly, the same-sex couple here is being compensated for their lost time and energy, and not for their hurt feelings beyond simply being turned away. They do not receive any compensation for being offended at the beliefs of the cake shop owners, no more than the cake shop owners receive any compensation for for being offended that two people of the same sex should be getting married. Each party believes the other is wrong; but neither gets to impose their beliefs on the other, and both get to preserve their core identities. Truly, each may say to the other, "we're here, we're queer (from your perspective), get used to it".

If I were the dictator of Oregon and this case came before me, I would rule in favor of the same-sex couple, and order the cake shop to pay about $600 to the couple as compensation for damages (the tenfold increase from $60 is due to the fact that the state had to step in and force the transaction). I would then expand the scope of this decision by turning the case into a class-action suit, allowing any same-sex couple who can demonstrate that they had been similarly discriminated against to receive their $600 from their respective cake shops. Lastly, I would force such cake shops to implement the "outsourcing" solution. Alternatively, these cake shops may issue coupons for $60 off on wedding cakes from other nearby shops to any same-sex couple they turn away. The original cake shop would be responsible for negotiating and implementing this coupon system with the other shops.

The details of that "$60" solution can certainly be improved with more input from better businessmen and lawyers than I. However, the main point is that for both the "outsourcing" and the "$60" solution, the rights of both the cake shop and the same-sex couple can be preserved. The "outsourcing" solution is simple and fair. Even if it comes to the "$60" solution, the two parties can get along with minimal antagonism and with their core identities and rights intact. Both solutions achieve balance, and are vastly to be preferred over any scenario where one party simply imposes its will on the other.

As a final test, let's think about how these solutions work when the identities have been switched around. What if a Christian organization asked a gay-owned cake shop to put a Bible verse - say, Leviticus 20:13 - on a cake? Or what if an interracial couple asked a racist cake shop to make their wedding cake? How about if a white supremacist couple asked a black cake shop owner to write "for the propagation of the superior Aryan race" on their wedding cake? What about when a Buddhist temple wants a swastika-shaped cake from a Jewish cake shop? Can my proposed solutions above handle these cases equally well?

Think through these test scenarios, and consider how the two solutions would be implemented in each case. You'll see that the "outsourcing" solution handles all these cases with no conflict and protects the core identities of all involved parties. It's important to note that it does so completely independent of the moral correctness of any of the parties, which is a good sign. Even the "$60" solution minimizes antagonism and prevents one party from simply trampling over the rights of the other - again independent of the moral correctness of the parties involved.

Of course, nothing like my solutions happened in real life. The same-sex couple was simply turned away from "Sweet Cakes by Melissa" (sigh...), then the court hit the business with a crushing $135,000 fine (arg!). The cake shop then raised over $100,000 in an online campaign before that campaign was shut down (what?), and the owners have stated that they will contest the decision against them. I still have hope that all these one-sided efforts might cancel out to restore balance in our society, but real life continues to worry me.

Next week, we'll look at one more real-life case.

You may next want to read:
Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 5) (Next post of this series)
Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 3)
Human laws, natural laws, and the Fourth of July
Another post, from the table of contents

Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 3)

In the last post, I stated several principles which govern the interaction between the majority and a minority. We will now apply these principles to a real-world case, beyond the original story of the Muslim flight attendant.

For reference, the principles are reproduced below:
I believe that people have a right to the free exercise of their religion. This is actually only a small slice of a broader principle: that people have a right to live according to their identity.  
Conversely, it is wrong to require people to violate their conscience, their gender, their sexual orientation, their people's history, or other such categories that form one's core identity.  
I believe that the many - whether it be a large corporation, society at large, or simply "the majority" - also has a right to impose order and insure its own smooth operation.  
Conversely, it is wrong for an individual or a minority group to disrupt the workings of the majority to satisfy their own needs.  
I believe that, in case of a conflict, a balance should be struck. We should take the concerns of all parties into account and weigh them together to achieve a fair solution.  
Conversely, I am against one side simply imposing its will on the other. I will oppose actions whose chief goal is to forcefully restrict the freedom of others, whether it comes from the minority or the majority.  
I believe in cooperative, common-sense solutions characterized by nuance and empathy. 
Conversely, I am against ham-fisted, absolutist, or antagonistic decision making processes.  
Of course, we will not always find perfect solutions that perfectly satisfy all these principles. But especially in such cases, I believe that we should take special care not to favor the strong over the weak, the large corporation over the individual employee, the majority over the minority, or profits over personal rights.
Today, we will tackle the story of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year old student who was arrested for bringing in a home-assembled digital clock to school. If you haven't heard this story already, please read up on it. The remainder of this post will assume your familiarity with the story.

Now, because this is a recent event, new facts may emerge that changes the character of the story. Of course, I am all for taking into account any new relevant information, and for people always digging deeper for more facts. However, since I have to apply the above principles to SOMETHING, I have decided to take the story, as it appears on Wikipedia today (9/21/15), as canon. Remember that my chief concern is the application of the above principles: I am confident that, regardless of any additional information, the principles can be applied to arrive at a correct conclusion. That will be true even if that conclusion changes based on the new information.

Finally, to the matter at hand: first, Ahmed has the right to live according to his identity - that of being a Muslim student interested in engineering. He is free to put together digital clocks and bring them to school to show to people.

But the school also has a right to ensure its smooth operation and a duty to ensure the safety of its students and staff. At this point, I should point out that the appearance of Ahmed's clock is a legitimate cause for concern. This is true completely independent of any questions about Islamophobia or racism. Imagine that you're a teacher, and you came across this device with nobody nearby. It's been left behind beneath a random student's desk, and it's making beeping sounds. Would that not cause at least a small bit of concern? You would certainly be derelict in your duties if you simply shrugged your shoulders and walked away.

So, now we have a conflict between the student and the school. The principles stated above says that we should look for a balance. Neither party should get an absolute final say in restricting the freedom of the other: the school ought not to treat the student as a terrorist, but the student also ought not to be allowed to bring dangerous-looking device to school and flaunt it. Instead, a balanced solution that maximally preserves the rights of both parties should be sought. In my view, Ahmed's engineering teacher comes closest to striking this balance: upon looking at the clock, the teacher told Ahmed, "that's really nice", but also advised him to keep the device in his backpack the rest of the day. In this interaction, Ahmed is praised and validated for his achievement, but is also gently told that the appearance of his clock is problematic. The student's rights and the school's concerns are both taken into account and adequately protected.

The one additional thing that the engineering teacher could have done is to ask Ahmed to leave the clock with him until the end of the school day, so that he can to show it off to his other students. This would have enhanced both the recognition of the student's achievement, and also the security of the school. Of course, we can't fault the engineering teacher for not coming up with this solution on the spot - it's something that I came up with only due to perfect hindsight and the benefit of sitting calmly at my desk. But it is this kind of win-win solution, which takes the interests of all parties into account, that we always ought to be looking for.

Unfortunately, the story from this point veers off in the opposite direction, to a one-sided lose-lose scenario. The school acts in a unilateral, antagonistic manner, trampling over the student's concerns while only looking out for its own rights: the clock later beeped in Ahmed's English class, and the teacher requested to see it. Ahmed was then reported to the principal's office (up to here, I think things are okay - if you disrupt class with beeping from a scary-looking device, it's not unreasonable for that to merit a report to the principal's office). From there, the police got called in, and Ahmed is interrogated, handcuffed, and sent to a juvenile detention center. He was denied contact with his family, threatened with expulsion, and suspended for three days.

Clearly, the school massively overreacted. At some point in this chain of events - probably pretty early on - it must have become clear that the clock was not a bomb. At that point the school should have turned back from its course, acknowledged its error, and apologized to Ahmed. It should have upheld his right to make clocks and bring them to school, while gently reminding him to be careful about the threatening appearances of his devices. Instead, it plowed ahead on its one-sided course, and now the story is all over the news.

Fortunately, once the story hit the news, American society as a whole reacted to restore the balance by coming to Ahmed's support. He has now been invited to the White House by President Obama, along with receiving a great deal of other opportunities and expressions of support. So Ahmed has been greatly wronged by his school, but society as a whole restored the balance by compensating him for that wrong. That is as it should be. The only thing I might wish to have gone differently is if President Obama's invitation was delivered through Ahmed's school or the local police department, instead of over Twitter. That might have done more to directly compensate for the harm caused to Ahmed from these institutions, and allowed them to apologize to Ahmed gracefully. But of course, I can't fault Obama for not implementing this particular solution, which again only comes to me through hindsight and calming distance.

So in the end, the story appears to have come to an acceptable ending. I just can't help but think that all this would have been unnecessary if more authority figures around Ahmed had been able to see things from multiple perspectives, like his engineering teacher had. But instead, so much of our society seems to be driven by a simplistic, antagonizing, ham-fisted, one-sided narrative. It's not hard to imagine that the school administrators were driven by a safety-first, zero-tolerance policies that says "anything that compromises the safety of the school must be stopped". Conversely, the reaction to Ahmed's plight seems to be driven in part by an equally one-sided "LOL, Americans are racist Islamophobes" narrative. Sometimes we get lucky, and these one-sided narratives collide in such a way as to restore balance, as it did in Ahmed's case. But I still worry about what happens when we don't get lucky.

Next week, we will look at another case where such one-sided thinking leads to problems, which can be solved by the two-sided approach embodied in the principles above.

You may next want to read:
Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 4) (Next post of this series)
Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 1)
Human laws, natural laws, and the Fourth of July
Another post, from the table of contents

Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 2)

The goal of this post is to clearly state the principles which informed my position in the last post.

As a reminder: the last post discussed a Muslim flight attendant who was in danger of losing her job. She had refused to serve alcohol on flights, as such service would go against her faith.

My position was that her sincerely held religious beliefs ought to be protected, but the airline also had a right to operate without undue hardship. This calls for a careful consideration of the claims of each party, to see whether both concerns can satisfactorily addressed. The solution I proposed was this: the flight attendant ought not to be forced to serve alcohol, but she must make up for this in taking up other duties, so that the net effect on the airline is negligible. Whether or not she CAN make up for it determines whether this accommodation ought to be accepted: for instance, if she were a bartender instead of a flight attendant, clearly she would not be able to make up for not serving alcohol, therefore the accommodation would not work out, and I would fully support the business in firing her. However, since serving alcohol is a minuscule part of a flight attendant's job, it would be trivially simple to shuffle around the duties so that she does something else while another flight attendant serves the drinks. Thus, she should be accommodated.

I was furthermore against the simplistic idea that "if she can't do her job, she ought to be fired". To say that the business has an absolute power to fire an employee for not doing a part of her job - even if that part is a minuscule portion of the job description - would mean that the business could fire any imperfect employee. That is to say, it could fire any employee, period. This would simply be a case of the business trampling over the employee with its power, with no regard for balance, fair play, or the rights of the employee.

So, let's extract the principles involved here, and explicitly state them:
I believe that people have a right to the free exercise of their religion. This is actually only a small slice of a broader principle: that people have a right to live according to their identity. 
Conversely, it is wrong to require people to violate their conscience, their gender, their sexual orientation, their people's history, or other such categories that form one's core identity. 
I believe that the many - whether it be a large corporation, society at large, or simply "the majority" - also has a right to impose order and insure its own smooth operation. 
Conversely, it is wrong for an individual or a minority group to disrupt the workings of the majority to satisfy their own needs. 
I believe that, in case of a conflict, a balance should be struck. We should take the concerns of all parties into account and weigh them together to achieve a fair solution. 
Conversely, I am against one side simply imposing its will on the other. I will oppose actions whose chief goal is to forcefully restrict the freedom of others, whether it comes from the minority or the majority. 
I believe in cooperative, common-sense solutions characterized by nuance and empathy. 
Conversely, I am against ham-fisted, absolutist, or antagonistic decision making processes. 
Of course, we will not always find perfect solutions that perfectly satisfy all these principles. But especially in such cases, I believe that we should take special care not to favor the strong over the weak, the large corporation over the individual employee, the majority over the minority, or profits over personal rights.
I believe that my position on the issue of the flight attendant embodies all of these principles. I sincerely hope that these principles are things we can all agree on. It's only common sense and basic decency.

Also note that I'm not particularly concerned about the law of the land. Human laws derive their legitimacy from natural laws - in our case, from what is right and wrong as established by moral principles. If we understand the principles well, the implementation of their particulars in our laws will be straightforward. That is why I'm primarily concerned with the principles for now, in this post.

But in the next post, we will begin that next step, of implement these principles in other scenarios beyond the case of our Muslim flight attendant. We'll start off easy, then gradually increase the difficulty.

You may next want to read:
Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 3) (Next post of this series)
History, moral progress, and moral perfection (part 1)
Key principles in interpreting the Bible
Another post, from the table of contents

Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 1)

There is a news article about a Muslim flight attendant who is in danger of losing her job. She refuses to serve alcohol on flights, as such service would go against her faith.

This story seems to be a decent test case for evaluating our positions, without the usual political cheerleading getting in the way of our thinking. So that's what we'll do in this post.

As for me, I think that we are doing something very wrong if the structure of our society requires people to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. If we do so, we impoverish the diversity, tolerance, and freedom in our world while making it more dogmatic and tyrannical. This is so obvious, and already expressed so clearly by the first amendment, that it's actually a little embarrassing to have to write it out. Yet, here we are.

This is doubly true when a simple shifting of duties can so easily accommodate the religious conviction in question. Seriously, someone else can't take over for her when a passenger requests a drink, while she does extra work elsewhere? If we can't figure out this trivially simple logistics problem because we're all too busy taking sides, then we really are in trouble. What do we gain by forcing this woman to serve alcohol? More importantly, what do we lose?

Now, one possible objection to my view is that having a job requirement is not discriminatory. I fully agree. Nobody is arguing that she be allowed to keep her job as a bartender. But serving alcohol is a very minor part of being a flight attendant. Whatever other duty this woman performs instead of serving alcohol can easily make up for her inability to perform this one minor task, whether that is measured through customer satisfaction, the airline's bottom line, or her co-worker's work load.

This is an important condition: that she MUST take up extra duties elsewhere to make up for her inability to serve alcohol. Whether or not this is possible is where the line gets drawn in deciding if the airline ought to fire her. In this case, there's no question that it is possible, as serving alcohol is a minuscule part of a flight attendant's duties. (If this somehow turns out not to be the case, then I have no problem with the airline firing her.) Implementing this reassignment of duties is a trivially simple matter.

At this point, some people go off the deep end and say that if an employee cannot perform ANY PART of their job duties, no matter minor that part is, then the business has an absolute right to fire her. But this is simplistic and one-sided, and is only concerned with preserving the power of the business. It would allow a business to fire any imperfect employee, which is of course any employee, period. We must consider both sides - the business has the right to operate without undue interference or obstacles, but an employee also has the right to protect herself from being forced to violate her identity. These concerns must be evaluated and weighed. The above-mentioned condition is where these concerns meet: the employee must take up extra duties to make up for the trouble to the business, and if this accommodation is not possible she should be fired. In the case of our flight attendant, it's pretty clear that the accommodation is easily possible.

So then, the choices here are simple. The airline can simply shuffle some duties around - something so trivially easy that even a five-year-old can understand it - with no loss. Or, it can fire her. If we can't make the right choice here because we're too busy getting wrapped up in political cheerleading, we're in deep trouble.

Another possible objection is that the flight attendant would not be fired for being Muslim (which would be discriminatory), but for refusing to serve alcohol (which is just a part of her job). Anyone else making the same refusal would also be let go. But this fails on multiple levels. First, if the airline fires a non-Muslim with a genuine conviction against serving alcohol, it would still be making the wrong choice, even if it's only concerned with its own profits (note the cost of firing, hiring, and training, compared to no loss for the airline in making the accommodation). Accommodation is better even in the case of non-Muslims. Our Muslim flight attendant is therefore not pleading for some special privilege associated only with religion. She is simply appealing to the universal principles of common sense and basic decency.

But much more importantly, this idea of divorcing identity from action is fundamentally misguided, and fails on any other application. So, our flight attendant is allowed to BE Muslim, but she's not allowed to ACT Muslim? Behold the catalog of fails this leads to, in a multitude of analogous cases:
A Jewish holocaust survivor works as an artist in a graphics design firm. His identity doesn't matter much for his job, until his firm is commissioned by a Buddhist temple to draw some swastikas for a brochure. Due to his past trauma, he asks his boss to shift around the project assignments so that he can work on something else instead. But his boss replies, "Look, being an artist is your job. You must draw what the customer wants. To accommodate you may negatively affect the firm's bottom line. I know that you ARE a Jew, and I have no problem with that, but you're not allowed to ACT Jewish, by bringing up your past history or your people's past history. If you insist on ACTING Jewish, you're fired." 
A female P.E. instructor is working at a school, and for the new school year, they're bringing back a swimming class. Unfortunately, all previous swim instructors were male, so they don't have any female swimsuits for adult teachers. As part of the school's dress code, all articles of clothing - including swimsuits - must be provided by the school. When she goes to the principal to ask for a female swimsuit, she is told, "Look, I know that you ARE a woman, and I have no problem with that. But you're not allowed to ACT like a woman if that will hurt your job performance. Wearing a swimsuit is part of your job. You'll just have to wear one of the past instructor's male swimsuits we have available. Ordering another swimsuit would definitely impact the school's budget in a negative way. If you insist on ACTING like a woman and demand a woman's swimsuit, you'll be fired." 
A gay man works as a general handy-man around the school in a small, conservative town. He does gardening, plumbing, cleaning, and other such jobs after school is out. His work doesn't involve much interaction with the students or the parents - except at the annual "Back to School Night", for which he represents the school by serving as the greeter. He plans to marry a man that he loves, but doesn't want to create drama in his small, conservative town. So he goes to the principal and asks to be let off this one duty, with a corresponding pay cut. There he is told, "Look, I have no problem with the fact that you ARE gay. But I do have a problem with you ACTING gay by getting married. I'm not being discriminatory, because even if you were straight, I wouldn't want you to marry a man, and we would not be having this discussion if you would just marry a woman instead. Representing the school is part of your duties, and your effectiveness there would obviously decrease if you married a gay man in a town like ours. I don't want to have to look for another greeter, therefore you are forbidden to marry. Otherwise, you're fired." 
A transsexual woman starts at a new job, and runs into the usual problems with the bathrooms. Fortunately, the building has many single-occupancy bathrooms, but unfortunately they're all currently labeled as either for male or female. Not wanting to cause a stir at her new job, she asks the building supervisor to simply designate some of them as unisex bathrooms so that she doesn't have to bother anyone. The supervisor replies, "Look, I know that you think that you ARE a woman, and I have no problem with that. But working in this building is obviously a part of your job description, and you are not allowed to ACT like a women if that would disrupt the building and the use of its facilities. Furthermore, ordering new bathroom signs would undoubtedly impact the company's bottom line negatively. So, you must use the men's bathrooms. Otherwise you lose your job." 
A Muslim is working as a flight attendant, and on rare occasions a passenger requests alcohol, which her religion forbids for her to serve. So she asks for a simple reassignment of duties - she'll do some other work while being excused from having to serve alcohol. But the airline replies, "I know that you ARE a Muslim - in fact, you can call yourself whatever you'd like - but you're not allowed to ACT Muslim. That would interfere with your duties as a flight attendant. We furthermore deny your request for a different set of responsibilities, as that may be detrimental to our business. Violate your conscience, or face termination."
Who among us thinks any of this is okay? Identity without actions is meaningless. It's absurd to say things like "you can BE gay, as long as you don't ACT gay". The solution to these problems does NOT involve dictating what is allowed to someone with a marginalized identity, and it does NOT involve the ones in authority trampling everything to get their way. The solution consists of making a simple choice between two options:
Option A: Force the employee to perform an action that would profoundly violate their identity, by threatening them with the loss of their livelihoood. Or,  
Option B: Accommodate the employee's simple request, which has no significant negative effect for the employer.
This is not a hard choice. It is, as I said before, actually trivially simple. It is so easy that even a five-year-old can understand it and get it right. If you can't figure out something this easy because of some preconceived notions, you need to reject those notions and rethink your life.

In the next post, we will more carefully elucidate the principles at work here.

You may next want to read:
Religious freedom and religious accommodations (Part 2) (Next post of this series)
Human laws, natural laws, and the Fourth of July
The intellect trap
Another post, from the table of contents