(MCT)—OK, let’s suppose you fly into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Let’s suppose you are carrying alcohol—rum from the Caribbean or a Merlot you found in Napa Valley, Calif. Now, let’s suppose you try to hail a cab while carrying said alcohol.

Good luck. You’re going to need it.

Muslims, most from Somalia, make up three quarters of drivers serving the airport, and in recent years, many have refused to carry passengers carrying alcohol because Islam frowns on liquor. Because of this, many passengers have been left stranded. Occasionally, even blind people using Seeing Eye dogs have been refused passage by drivers citing Islamic teachings that the saliva of dogs is unclean.

After simmering for years, the issue has come to a boil. An airport commission in recent weeks scheduled a public hearing to discuss stiffening penalties for the wayward cabbies. As things now stand, a driver who refuses to carry you and your booze has to go back to the end of the cab line and wait hours for another fare.

According to a report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, new rules have been proposed that would require a 30-day suspension for a first offense and revocation of a cabbie’s airport license for two years after the second.

Sounds good to me, but Khalid Elmasry disagrees. He is spokesperson for a group called the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. Here’s MASM’s idea: Color code the taxis according to whether the drivers accept alcohol.

Yeah, because flying is not enough of a hassle already. This is not intolerance. It is not Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim, taking his oath of office on a Koran and being tortured for it by xenophobes.

Rather, it is a group of men who refuse to do their jobs because of a perceived conflict with their religious beliefs. You are entitled to your religious beliefs. You are not entitled to require your employer or customers to go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate those beliefs.

This was a bad fight for the cabbies to pick. In the first place: If this were as critical a religious issue as they would have us believe, why aren’t Muslim cabbies across the country refusing to haul liquor-bearing riders? In the second place: It is foolish to needlessly invite negative attention.

If this all sounds familiar to you, it’s because we’ve seen this movie before. The news was full of Christian pharmacists two years ago who cited religious reasons in refusing to fill prescriptions for the anti-contraception pill. Different religion, same hubris, same eagerness to impose one’s own moral standards upon others.

And what’s next? Will drivers refuse to serve gays or Jews or women without veils? Will we let everybody in every profession reject any customer whose race, culture, religion or moral choices offend?

No. Because that is anathema to this nation’s ideals. And the sooner certain Muslims understand that, the better. To stand shivering in a Minneapolis winter waiting on a color-coded taxi would prove tolerance only of religious extremists who think the world must accommodate itself to their beliefs.

You want a perfect solution? Here it is: Muslim cabbies should stop balking and do their jobs. Period.

© 2007 The Miami Herald