I really, really hate smokers

[Ben Kenobi]

I thought you didn't have a job. Have you been a pharmacist?

I have been working in a health food store for the last while. I have other jobs, but that was my full-time job.

As for pharmacy, my aunt is a pharmacist. So I know what she has had to go through in order to get certification.

The argument was not about right and wrong, it was about legal vs. illegal. You said that Eckerd (can you get the spelling right? That's the name of the pharmacy chain, not a person) shouldn't have been able to fire the pharmacist.

I was arguing should. He was saying that he fired her because she was a Catholic. That is discrimination and it is wrong. Legally, he was permitted to do so, but from a moral standpoint what he did was wrong.

Still, I find this a hypocritical statement. The pharmacist took the job at Eckerd knowing full well they dispensed birth control.

How do you know that? Not every private pharmacist dispenses contraception. It is very possible that the policy changed while she was employed. I have been very clear. I think that if a pharmacy chain dispenses contraceptives that they ought to be required to disclose that as a condition of employment prior to hiring a pharmacist. If they choose not to disclose this requirement, then they cannot fire an employee for exercising her right to freedom of conscience.

Given all your worship of contracts, to say it is somehow morally right for her to break her contract

Where does her contract explicitly state that she is required to dispense contraceptives? The owner may have assumed that to be the case, but unless he actually disclosed this as a job requirement, then it's not in the contract.

She lied when she agreed to sell Eckerd's products, and exposed her employer to a potential lawsuit.

Did Eckhard in fact disclose that among their products they sell contraceptives?

She wasn't refusing the emergency contraception to some teenage girl who decided to hump her boyfriend and screwed up, it was a rape victim.

How is dispensing contraception going to remove the pain of her rape? Is it going to treat the emotional scars? What medical condition is emergency contraception going to cure? It doesn't matter the reason why she desires contraception, pregnancy is not a disease that must be cured.

I didn't say that. Of course, pharmacists are expected to prevent things like overdosing and act as a safety net. That does NOT give them the right, however, to refuse to dispense a medication as a whole, if the pharmacy itself sells them.

Yes it does. They can outright refuse to dispense medication if they do not believe it is being used in the manner in which it's intended.

That is a completely different situation. A comparable situation would be a bartender. They have every right (and are legally required, in most cases) to refuse to serve a drink to someone if they are too drunk. They do NOT have the right to refuse to serve a product of the bar entirely, and could rightfully be sacked for it.

Are they required to dispense absinthe?

The lady is not saying that she cannot dispense anything, she is simply saying that she will not dispense one product of the many carried by the store. Therefore, the analogy fails.

As I said, pharmacists contract will state they will dispense whatever medications the pharmacy carries. A blanket statement like that covers birth control.

If they do not explicitly state that they sell contraception, then that could be construed as a misleading statement. The burden is on the employer to disclose.

Yes, she is. And signing a contract that says "You will dispense whatever medications we carry" meets this criteria. Ergo: obligation.

Do you have a copy of her contract which says explicitly that? If a pharmacist dispenses contraception it is the duty of the pharmacist to disclose this to their employees prior to hiring. If they fail to disclose, then they cannot require the employee to act against her freedom of conscience. If they disclose and the employee chooses to work there anyway, then she doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Saying that you are required to dispense any and all medications, without informing the candidate as to precisely what you carry, is not good enough, especially when things change over time. You cannot require an employee to consent to selling something that was not there at the time of the initial contract.

Run roughshod? You yourself said that if an employee has signed a contract with an employer, the contract should be valid no matter what the government thinks.

Yes, but I don't believe she should be required to act against her rights when the contract does not specify that contraception is part of their inventory to sell. I actually doubt that her contract even says she is required to dispense everything in the store, simply because of inventory turnover. In fact, I would think her contract simply requires her to act in the manner and perform her duties as a pharmacist, which is something very, very different from being required to dispense whatever is on sale. Again, you are treating pharmacists as pill dispensers, when they are trained professionals.

I have been consistent: The rights of an employer stop at the point where the health of a worker can be unneccessarily jeapordized, the rights of the employee stop at a point where they cause an undue burden on the employer to conduct its business.

Conscience rights are not an undue burden. An employee can refuse to work holy days, and must be accomodated by an employer for the same reason. It is not an undue burden to the employer that she would refuse to dispense one product, when there are other employees who can do it instead. Can you show that the store has resulted in a substantial loss in revenue associated with this one woman standing up for her conscience rights?

The same is not true of smoking bans, which have been shown to be an undue burden on employers. You cannot ask them to forgo a singificant portion of their clientele in order to stay open. If an employee is aware of the consequences of working with smokers, then I don't see any problem with the contract, and permitting employees to work in smoking rooms if that is there choice.

So my position is to protect employee rights AND health, yours is not. You're only interested in protecting the consciences of a few folks who happen to share your right wing ideology.

I'm protecting the 1 billion or so Catholics who reject contraception. Right wing or not, it is what the church teaches.

You said that you don't care about the health of a worker so long as they've signed a contract declaring their health disposable. Positively callous.

All I said is that employees should have that option. I don't know how you get from there to saying I don't care about their health. I think they are adult enough to make that decision for themselves, rather then having other people make that decision for them.

Which of course you don't actually believe, because you accept that contracts can be signed even between two willing parties that cannot be legally obligated, such as selling one's self into slavery. Or being a prostitute. Yeah, not so consistent.

How is slavery a contract that is freely signed? You cannot sell what you don't own.

Bull****. Nothing about working in a restaurant or bar NECESSITATES an exposure to smoke.

Up until the enforced smoking ban, was it generally expected that working in a restaurant meant exposure to smoke?

The core function of a server is to serve the items that the establishment sells. It's no more a core function of the job than it would be for them to have to be threatened by exposed, faulty wiring in the restaurant or asbestos in the walls.

Until the ban the restaurant environment meant smoke. If the ban is lifted that will return. So I don't really get your argument.

Utterly absurd. The issue is that dispensing any and all medications is a core part of their job.

They aren't pill dispensors. Their job is to fill the prescriptions assigned by a doctor, in a fashion that is safe, protects their health, that the medications are of the proper dosage, and purity.

What medical condition does contraception cure? It has very serious and significant health and side effects for women. Where is it the proper role of the pharmacist to dispense contraception?

You cannot logically isolate any particular medication from that, no more than you can isolate a particular drink from the serving duties of a bartender. If a pharmacist refused to dispense cancer medications in toto, how could you say they were NOT refusing to do the core function of their job?

I can certainly refuse as a bar to dispense absinthe.

A dodge, and a nonsensical one at that. You have given a very good justification for decriminalizing prostitution.

You can't sell what you don't own. That includes body parts, prostitution or slavery.

And why did your signature change? The bet was until the inauguration. Put it back, please.

It changed because I couldn't put it back the way it was to accommodate your changes due to the new software.

[SlowwHand]

Ben, you make a lot of "mistakes" that you don't own up to. That's why we call you a liar.

We call you ******* because you're full of ****.

[Ming]

HEY! Enough with the personal crap.

[DaShi]

It seems that I'm reaching him.

[DaShi]

Oh, I got Sloww to remove me from his sig.

[-Jrabbit]

OK, last time.

I don't suppose you recall people were saying that already in the thread when I posted that I'd made a honest error? I figured if I'm already doing the time, I might as well do the crime.

Sounds like an admission of troll. I personally believe it started as an honest mistake, which you then amateurishly tried to convert into a troll.

JRabbit, I don't know what's gotten into you but you've been very hostile over the last while, it doesn't matter where I post, I see sniping back and forth from you.

Hostile? Nah. Frustrated a bit, but nothing more. And don't worry! I won't be addressing your posts directly for the foreseeable future.

You may think of it as sniping, but in fact I have only engaged to post opposing points of view and point out inconsistencies and errors. I routinely offer this service to other posters as well. You flatter yourself in thinking it's somehow personal.

If I'm honest, people think I'm trolling, when I post exactly how I feel, and go from there. When I admit to making a honest mistake, I get pilloried, everyone calls me a liar, etc.

I've never called you a liar. Ever.

Here's the problem. If you want someone to be truthful and respectful, you need to treat them that way when they do admit a mistake.

I find it ironic and a bit pathetic that, after offending Asher as you did -- attacking his very lifestyle as a monogamous, committed homosexual -- you have the nerve to talk about respect. I don't expect you to support things that are against your religion. But in a public forum that welcomes all, your seeming inability to coexist with -- let alone respect -- others is immature, mean-spirited, and -- some would say -- un-Christian.

If you wish to make them troll, then accuse them of lying when they are telling the truth.

No one forced you to troll. It was a decision you made. And again, I have only accused you of being wrong. Never have I called you a liar. Never have I criticized you as a person, nor your belief system.

Admitting a mistake while declining to address other points of contention is something I find extremely annoying. You're a frustrating person to argue with, Ben, mostly because you never, ever change your opinion, no matter the factual and logical evidence presented.

So for now, I've decided not to directly particpate in that. Nothing personal.

[Nikolai]

What was the topic of this thread again?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I dunno. Something about gays, smokers, the religious right, and don't forget Poland.

[Nikolai]

Poland. The lithmus test for any wannabe dictator. Any dictator wants to invade Poland, if not, he's not a real dictator and can safely be left alone.

[Alinestra Covelia]

It's true. When Hitler and his staff wanted to invade Poland, they used code words to describe it. All the code words were drawn from euphemisms for fellatio and that's where we get "Pole smoking" from.

True stuff.

[Cort Haus]

I believe that 'Operation Canned Goods' was the codename for Hitler's invasion of Poland. I suspect that even AC would struggle to extract a knob-gobbling innuendo from that.

Then again ....

[Supr49er]

If I may ...

[Nikolai]

I believe that 'Operation Canned Goods' was the codename for Hitler's invasion of Poland. I suspect that even AC would struggle to extract a knob-gobbling innuendo from that.

Then again ....

Operation Canned Goods? Sounds kinky enough for me...

[Alinestra Covelia]

Another thing that's interesting. You get a lot of meat products that are named after the town they come from. So, Frankfurt's delicacy is a Frankfurter, a round patty from Hamburg is a Hamburger, etc.

The chicken meat sausage called a wiener is from Vienna, which in German is Wien.

It took me some time to make that connection.

[Nikolai]

Really? Well, I guess it helps to use the native name of the city, as we do here in the frozen north(which isn't much frozen where I am living btw, thanks to the Gulf Stream).