There is an interesting controversy out of Winooski, Vermont over a sign for Sneakers diner. As part of a city program, Sneakers helped beautify its street with flower beds and in return was allowed to put up a sign. The diner featured its favorite dish with a sign that read: “Yield For Sneakers Bacon.” However, a Muslim woman who was also a vegan objected that a sign with the word bacon was offensive to her due to her religion’s ban on eating pork products. The diner responded by immediately taking down the sign and personally apologizing to the woman. That accommodation has led to a backlash from others who feel that the diner is yielding to ultra-sensitive individuals and encouraging such demands from others who may be offended by any number of food references and dishes.
The woman who described herself as “a vegan and a member of a Muslim household” made a complaint that called the sign offensive and that led owner Sneakers owner Marc Dysinger to take the corrective action.
It is not clear if the objection was motivated by the woman being a vegan or a Muslim. Regardless of whether this objection was from the perspective of a Muslim or a vegan or a Muslim vegan, there remains the question of whether there can be too much accommodation of such views. While tolerance is greatly (and correctly) valued in our society, there is a countervailing concern over a type of self-censorship where words and signs are increasingly eliminated to satisfy every sensitive group or individual. On a large scale, the Redskins debate has focused on this issue when a board ruled that it did not matter if a small group found a name offensive to be stripped of its trademark protections. The question is whether, despite our desire to protect values of pluralism and tolerance, we also have to protect pluralism in free speech and to resist pressure for common denominators in messages that remove every term or phrase deemed offensive to someone. There is a tendency in a tolerant society to say simply “well, what is the problem? If something hurts someone’s feelings, just change it.” However, in our world of mass communications and messaging, most messages could be deemed to have offensive elements. It requires judgment and certainly creates the danger that you will be viewed as intolerant. However, a reference to bacon — even “yielding” to bacon — would seem to all into a category of unoffensive speech by any objective standard.
This is obviously just a single small sign of a small diner in a small town. However, it is an interesting context to explore the limits of accommodation in speech and the dangers that it presents to the free exchange of ideas, tastes, and viewpoints. We have seen a comprehensive crackdown on the West on free speech under some laws combating hate speech, discriminatory speech, and even disruptive speech. While the first amendment only deals with government action, we have to be concerned about the chilling effect of private action over speech. For example, we have discussed the controversy involving Yale University Press. 
In a shocking decision, Yale University Press published Jytte Klausen’s “The Cartoons That Shook the World” (on the cartoons that led to riots and over 200 killed in protests worldwide). However, Yale removed the the 12 cartoons from the book so not to insult Muslims. Thus, you could read the book but not actually see the cartoons themselves. It was a decision by Yale University Press that is still discussed as anti-intellectual and cowardly in academic circles.
It is unclear how this person in Vermont goes through life surrounded by pictures of pork, including advertisements. The appearance left by these stories is someone who sees bacon in a sign that then stews (presumably vegan stew) for hours and days over the reference. A better lesson for her might have been for the owner to politely say that the sign was not meant to insult her but that she should consider whether she is overly sensitive as a person living in a pluralistic society with many different views and tastes. Tolerance includes the ability to walk through society and understand that you will be exposed to the expression of many things that you might not like. However, we protect your right to live your life as you choose. That does not grant the additional expectation that others will conform to your preferences in their own speech or expressions. It is hard to say that the diner should not have taken down the sign since it seemed to care little about the content of the sign. Yet, the action reinforces a view that businesses and people should yield to such objections regardless of their objective merit.
We cannot have a society where terms, words, and expressions are banished by any objection of any group. That course will drain away the vitality, diversity, and spontaneity of speech in our society. It requires not an act of intolerance but a commitment that there must be tolerance of speech and images in a pluralistic society.
What do you think?
Source: WPTZ
davidm, excellent discussion. Should a teacher be denied wearing a hijob, which she believes is a religious requirement when in public?
“I would not have a problem with the Bible or Qur’an being on a teacher’s desk. That would be no more disruptive than having a textbook or newspaper on the desk.”
Well, I do because those have nothing to do with the class or subject matter of the classroom….UNLESS the topic is comparative religion, which is a topic that SHOULD be mandatory in school, but it isn’t. Then the presence of religious texts would be appropriate because, I would assume, that they are being used in the classroom as teaching aids. If the class is algebra or biology or geography (you name it), there is no reason on Earth to have religious texts in the classroom on display at the teacher’s desk. The display would be for the teacher to make public his/her sentiments and do so in a position of power over the students. You might as well have a giant pile of Playboy magazines sprawling across the desk….they have as much relevance to the classroom study as a Bible or Koran…unless it is comparative religion there is no place for it in the public school system where the students are essentially prisoners anyway. Forced to attend. Forced to be fed religion that may not be of their own choosing. They can’t get up and walk away, can they?
This is the difference between allowing artwork and other representations of religious views in public buildings. People can avoid those representation by not frequenting the area. Students are, literally, captives. If you are a Jewish student and your instructor has the Koran or Mein Kampf on his/her desk, don’t you think this might be a bit disconcerting? I would find it so if I were a Jewish person. If the teacher had KKK pamphlets on his/her desk or a replica of the Flag of Rebellion, might not the Black students be uncomfortable? There is no place in the public school system or in governmental offices for religious or political expression because you are compelled to be there. People have ample opportunity to express their views outside of those venues.
I personally have no issue with the ‘artwork’ or inscriptions at all, and they don’t cause disruptions in and of themselves and feel that they have historical significance….. however given the recent trend in the Courts and the incessant lawsuits and whining about uneven treatment, I believe it better to have nothing instead of EVERYTHING in the public governmental buildings.. As someone said when you insist on allowing ALL, it becomes farce and denigrates the meaning of those historical symbols. Festivus poles made of beer cans, plates of spaghetti for the Pastafarians. Voodoo dolls and chicken bones. There would be no end of the whining for equality of everyone and no end to the insertions of representations of every kind. Chaos!!
Bunny, if you censor all things religious, and allow only secularism and atheistic philosophies to have expression, it will not stop the whining or the chaos that you are talking about. You are just trading who it is that will complain. You reject what the religious think is acceptable speech in order to accept what the atheist thinks is acceptable speech.
You talk about chaos where teachers will want to bring voodoo dolls and chicken bones into the classroom, but none of that happened in this nation when teachers were allowed to pray and have a Bible in the classroom. The chaos started when an atheist sued to get prayer out of the schools, and then the ACLU started a campaign to strip all things religious from the public square. They moved to take the homosexuals out of the closet and to shame the religious to move into the closet.
What if a teacher has her purse on her desk, or a cell phone, or any personal articles? What if her cell phone case has a graphic on it? What if she wears a cross around her neck? What if the item on her desk is a magazine that came in the mail, like National Geographic or the Smithsonian? What if it is a religious magazine or a political magazine? Are you claiming they are disruptive if any of these are simply visible on her desk? Really? I just don’t see it.
Wouldn’t it be better for the established principle be about not allowing disruptive speech rather than trying to stereotype a type of speech to censor, such as censoring all religious speech or all political speech?
To claim that having a giant pile of Playboy magazines on the desk is just as relevant as having the Bible on the desk is ridiculous. Pictures of playboy bunnies are a very well known distraction to teenagers. As I mentioned before, the Bible is the first book ever published and the most published book in history. It contains the sacred history of the Jewish race as well as interesting myths about the origin of Western civilization. Are you really going to pretend that you cannot tell the difference in educational value between a Playboy magazine and the Bible? I think you are smarter than that.
Would some Jewish students be uncomfortable seeing Mein Kampf on the teacher’s desk? Yes, but so what. Stop coddling our children. Students need to learn in school that we live in a pluralistic society and lots of people have different ideas about things. One of my child’s teachers last year was a raging atheist who constantly berated creationists as being ignorant fools. Lots of students were uncomfortable with that. Didn’t bother me. I did not go to the school and complain about it. I liked that my daughter was stirred up to contrast the way I have taught her with the way her teacher thought about things. It actually stimulated more relationship between my daughter and me because she could not wait to come home and tell me what Mr. Wells said in class that day. We would discuss it and I would give her things to think about and suggest ways that I would have responded to him. And quite frankly, I think every student should read Mein Kampf to understand the mindset of that infamous man who wrote it. I think it is good for Jews to go to class and see Mein Kampf on the teacher’s desk, and for Christians to go to another class where the teacher has the Talmud on his desk, and for Muslims to go to another class where the teacher has the Bible on his desk. We live in a pluralistic society and public education needs to be about exposing children to that pluralism. Especially in today’s climate of Jihad, we need our children to be better educated about Islam.
You have no problem with a Judge having a Ten Commandments plaque mounted on the wall behind his desk, but you have a problem with a Bible on a teacher’s desk? That seems incongruent to me.
I guess we beat this topic to death, but I see little logical consistency in what you consider allowable and not allowable. It seems like you just go on intuition or emotion and how you feel about it. I think the First Amendment gets the closest to being right, and it prohibits favoring one religion over another as well as prohibits censoring religious speech. This principle of individual freedom also should govern schools, where teachers should be free to pray according to their conscience and whatever their religion is, or not pray, or be secular if that is what they think is best. None of us should force others to keep their religion a private matter. None of us should force teachers and others who work for government to become secularists in their public life.
As a Jew I would be very alarmed if my teacher had mein kampf on her desk and it wasnot a part of our curricula.
I wrote this sometime back on another thread: Our school was 75% Jewish yet we had to bring in notes for absence on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah while we not only got Christmas off but had a Christmas concert where, until 12th grade when a Jewish student complained, we sang only religious Christian songs. After that we sang religious and non religious and I thik 1 – 2 Jewish songs (if that)
As a kid in elementary school we had to read a from the New Testament as well as pray. What it taught me David, was that religion was bogus, only applied to a specific group and made me anatheist/ agnostic for many many years.
You seem to think it is good thing to have religion in the schools. As long as it is presented as nothing more or less then current events time and pledge of allegiance time, which is how they did it in my school: 5 kids stood in the front of the room, different kids each week so everyone got a turn, like it or not, and one did current events, one led the pledge, one gave a prayer and one read the Bible. Take away was Belief and religion is nothing to care about.
As for prayer, anyone can pray in the school at any time, as my fromer minister said, just watch kids before a test, boy are a lot of them praying but the nice thing is they pray to their preferred G-d, they pray the way they are taught in their preferred religion.
leejcaroll – not sure who said it, but it is very true. If you want to take religion out of public schools, stop giving tests.
@ David
Yes. I think we are pretty close in thoughts. The main issue that I have with allowing the expression of religion in a work environment or in a governmental setting, which includes a school, is that 1. It is disruptive to the work that is supposed to be occurring and 2. To allow one sect to express is to allow ALL, which would create even more chaos and be an even bigger disruption. Therefore all religious and political expressions which everyone is free to have should not be allowed in the public workplace. No one is saying you can’t be religious or political….you just can’t do it HERE.
Dust Bunny Queen wrote: “The best action for the public entity to take is to not allow open and public expressions of religiosity by the teachers and staff.”
Now this statement returns us to very muddy waters. It only works for those who believe the philosophy that religion is a private matter.
DBQ says: I mean in the classroom and IN the school environment.
Are you against the President saying at the end of a State of Union address, “God bless you, and God bless the United States of America”?
DBQ: I don’t care one way or the other. God is a pretty generic term and doesn’t seem to be endorsing any particular sect. I don’t listen to the President anyway and especially not this one.
Are you against the SCOTUS building having a public display of images of religious leaders like Moses and Muhammad?
DBQ: I suppose it is generic again and a reminder of where our laws come from historically, but really….I don’t think that they should because again. Let in one…let in ALL
Are you against the images of the Ten Commandments and the Qur’an being publicly visible in the Supreme Court of the United States?
DBQ: Same as above. Although I don’t see why the Koran should be included as Islam is not an integral part of our founding history. Neither is Buhdism or Hinduism. All valid religious viewpoints but not historically significant to the United Staes.
Are you against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore having a Ten Commandments plaque mounted on the wall inside his chambers?
DBQ: He can have whatever he wants inside his chambers. Velvet Elvis whatever
Are you against public officials acknowledging God when they take their oath of office, to uphold the Constitution, and they say, “So Help Me God”?
DBQ: If they want to do so. Let them. They shouldn’t be forced or coerced either. If they want to swear on their mother’s grave or on Muhammed then whatever they think will seal their oath….why should I care. They are likely lying anyway.
Are you against a teacher who has a Bible, Qur’an, or Book of Mormon publicly visible on his or her desk?
DBQ: Absolutely against!!!. The teacher should be teaching the class in the subject at hand. Unless it is a comparative religion class and ALL of the books are going to be used as references, there is absolutely no reason to have them in class.
Are you against the official motto of our nation being, “In God We Trust”?
DBQ: not really. It has historic significance and again “God” is a generic term.
Are you against our national motto being put on our money?
DBQ; I’m against our money being debased and devalued. We could have the hokey pokey written on it as long as it is a true currency backed by real value.
Are you against all the Bible verses etched in many government buildings around Washington D.C. and other cities?
DBQ: Yes. Again. Let one in …let them all in. Chaos.
Are you against crosses being publicly visible in public cemeteries?
DBQ: No because people are free to express their religiosity in non governmental buildings and public places and honor the beliefs of the dead. People can have crosses. Star of David. Islamic symbols Carved Harley motorcycles None of those symbols are establishing a religion. If people are so sensitive that they can’t take it….cremate your dead and put them in your closet so you don’t have to see other people’s symbols and be grossed out by other people’s beliefs.
Bunny, I appreciate the reply. It is difficult for me to discern a single principle that guides you in what is allowable and what is not. You certainly do not follow the principle you mentioned previously, namely: “The best action for the public entity to take is to not allow open and public expressions of religiosity by the teachers and staff.” Sometimes you allow it and sometimes you don’t.
The ACLU had sued Justice Moore over his little wooden plaque, so I am again glad to see you don’t walk in lockstep with them on this matter.
I agree with the principle that no speech should be disruptive in school. That includes both religious and political speech. Some of your comments I would answer differently. For example, I would not have a problem with the Bible or Qur’an being on a teacher’s desk. That would be no more disruptive than having a textbook or newspaper on the desk. Especially in regards to the Bible, it was the first book ever printed and the most published book in history. Every classroom should have a Bible in my opinion just because so much education has been based upon books being published. We certainly should not be afraid of the book just because millions of people consider it a holy book. It seems a crime for people to graduate from public high school and be completely ignorant of the most published book in all of history. That puts students graduating from public high school at a disadvantage compared to students fortunate enough to be born to wealthy parents who could afford to send their children to a private school with a more robust curriculum of study.
I am curious about how far you would go proactively against all the Scriptures etched in public buildings, and the Qur’an image in the SCOTUS building. Should we take sandblasters to them and wipe out the architecture? What about the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Library of Congress? Should it be removed too?
From my perspective, I don’t think the artwork in these buildings cause any harm or disruption. I think the First Amendment should rule in this, which is to allow the artwork and not discriminate against it just because it might be viewed by some to have religious implications.
Daniel F.
Also he has now been thrust in the public light and to put the sign back up could put him, his family and his business in danger of retribution from an extremist element of Islamists. It’s his call and he still has to make a living.
Also, shame on JT for this. He actually links to real issues, but uses the ‘vegan’ and ‘Muslim’ as what appears to me (and I am often wrong) as click bait.
I expect that from CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Not from here.
Did any of you ‘put the progs in camps’ people read the article? Seriously, it isn’t very long, go read it and explain how it is an example of PC, or liberals, or whatever other boogeyman you need to blame it on.
I would say the store owner taking the sign down was his choice. Or are you saying he shouldn’t have the choice because you assume you know ‘the real reason’?
The sign was taken down by the people that put it up. They decided it was better for them to remove a piece of metal, than get into a public argument with someone that is the kind of person that complains when they see something they don’t like. They had the right to leave it, but made a choice, but some how that is proof of PC run amok, or liberal plots, or my favorite, excuse to blame the nation’s problems on ‘the progressives’ even though the evidence points to it being a problem regardless of which team is in charge at the moment.
There are real examples of PC madness in the world, why not go attack those?
Daniel Frankovitch wrote: “I would say the store owner taking the sign down was his choice. Or are you saying he shouldn’t have the choice because you assume you know ‘the real reason’?”
Of course he has the choice and should have the choice. The point is what should he choose to do? It is the same with the Washington Redskins being asked to change the name of the team. The team owner should have the choice, but people are going to comment about what that choice ought to be. Some people are concerned that if we simply always capitulate to the whiners, that society will become full of whiners and complainers.
po, DBQ is a wise woman.
@davidm2575
I agree that people should not have to hide their religion in schools or any governmental agency. However, the open and public display of a religion that would disrupt the flow of work or that would impinge on the sensibilities of the students and put subtle pressure on them to accept or reject a person’s religiosity is something that can be banned without banning a religion. You can wear your religion on your sleeve with pride. You can’t use your religion to disrupt everyone around you.
For example, discretely bowing your head and saying mental grace before eating is a sensitive and an admirable thing. The person is being true to his religion without pressuring anyone. However, bowing your head and loudly and lengthily praying is disruptive. The principal can throw down a rug and bow to Mecca in his office. To do so in the public quad in front of the students is disruptive and somewhat coercive. If eating pork is anathema to your religion, instead of making a big deal of it, bring your own lunch. Wearing a face covering burkha is disruptive to the workplace. People need to know and identify who they are working with, especially teachers who are working face to face with young impressionable students. If all they see is a big black bag, the students might as well just stay home and do online classes.
The best action for the public entity to take is to not allow open and public expressions of religiosity by the teachers and staff. It doesn’t give higher status to the non religious (because we don’t want them proselytizing their non religion in the workplace either and if they do they should also be stopped). What it does is to give equal footing to all religions that people hold without creating disruptions in the workplace.
As a former employer, I made it clear to my employees that I don’t care what they do in their private lives (as long as it is legal and not going to reflect back onto me) but when they were in my office, they are there to work and keep their opinions to themselves. If he/she wanted to have some DISCRETE displays on their desk or wear some jewelry that was significant to their religion….cool. We had small decoration for Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween etc. I personally was dealing with many different people and different world viewpoints, some of which I disagreed with and about which I kept my mouth shut. If the disagreement was fundamental….perhaps my client turned out to be a virulent racist or neo nazi I could find a diplomatic way to “fire them” as my client. My call. MY JOB was to manage their finances and estate plans. My employees job was to do the work that I gave them, do it well and not disrupt the flow between me and my clients.
Quite sensitive and logical, Dust bunny! Who’d find fault with that but he looking to fault in it?
Dust Bunny Queen, we seem pretty close to seeing this the same way, except maybe you lean more toward being dismissive of religious views being expressed publicly.
I look at religious views similar to political views. If it would be wrong for a public official to express his political views publicly, then it would be wrong for him to express his religious views. I don’t want school teachers proselytizing children to join their political party. However, I would not forbid a teacher from expressing openly and publicly his political party and why he supports that party. If a teacher wants to express a liberal ideology or a conservative ideology, that is good for education. Same thing with religious views. The sticking point is to be tolerant enough of all viewpoints not to censor or forbid one particular viewpoint.
Dust Bunny Queen wrote: “… discretely bowing your head and saying mental grace before eating is a sensitive and an admirable thing.”
I am glad to see you disagree with the ACLU’s approach to censoring this kind of religious expression at Pace High School in Florida.
Dust Bunny Queen wrote: “The best action for the public entity to take is to not allow open and public expressions of religiosity by the teachers and staff.”
Now this statement returns us to very muddy waters. It only works for those who believe the philosophy that religion is a private matter.
Are you against the President saying at the end of a State of Union address, “God bless you, and God bless the United States of America”?
Are you against the SCOTUS building having a public display of images of religious leaders like Moses and Muhammad?
Are you against the images of the Ten Commandments and the Qur’an being publicly visible in the Supreme Court of the United States?
Are you against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore having a Ten Commandments plaque mounted on the wall inside his chambers?
Are you against public officials acknowledging God when they take their oath of office, to uphold the Constitution, and they say, “So Help Me God”?
Are you against a teacher who has a Bible, Qur’an, or Book of Mormon publicly visible on his or her desk?
Are you against the official motto of our nation being, “In God We Trust”?
Are you against our national motto being put on our money?
Are you against all the Bible verses etched in many government buildings around Washington D.C. and other cities?
Are you against crosses being publicly visible in public cemeteries?
The list of public religious expressions becomes almost endless. It would be much better for the sake of liberty and freedom to have the First Amendment apply to public entities. The First Amendment prohibits interference with such speech and is much preferred to your idea of creating a rule that does not allow open and public expressions of religiosity (whatever that means) by the teachers and staff.
what if that principal rolls out a prayer mat in the front of the students, faces Mecca, and begins prayer in Arabic? Think some folks might have some issues?”
“Maybe some will have issues about it, but so what. That’s their problem. The First Amendment is about religious freedom, and principals do not shed their Constitutionally protected rights when they walk into school. Our government should not favor one religion over another, nor should it favor secularism over theism. Both philosophies should be allowed to express their views equally.”
And neither do the students shed their rights upon walking into school. In a school environment where there is a superior/subordinate relationship between teachers and students, there could be construed a subtle subliminal coercive atmosphere, if the superior person in power were to espouse in a public way his/her religion.
The teachers or principal have every right to express their religion. They don’t have a right to present it in an atmosphere where their subordinates (students or other teachers) might feel that they are obligated to either join in or suppress their OWN religious inclinations in order to be in the good graces of those who have power over them.
To prevent such a conflict, it should be that the outward expression of ANY religion be restricted to outside of the boundary of the professional teacher/student relationship. In other words…..keep it outside of the school and do what you want on your own time.
Dust Bunny Queen wrote: “To prevent such a conflict, it should be that the outward expression of ANY religion be restricted to outside of the boundary of the professional teacher/student relationship. In other words…..keep it outside of the school and do what you want on your own time.”
Teachers should not be proselytizing in public schools, but that does not mean that they must be forced to make their religion private. There is a philosophy embraced by many that religion is a private matter between a person and his God. The First Amendment was not written for those people. It was written for people who wear their religion on their sleeve, that laws would not be written that would oppress them because of their religious beliefs. Telling a principal that he is not allowed to pray or bow his head or lay a prayer mat on his floor is oppressive and gives the imprimatur of government toward secularism and atheism over religion. Such creates an unequal status of the non-religious being better than the religious.
DBQ, Giving in to whining w/ anyone; be it a child, player[I coached], employee, commenter, is never the right thing to do. Whining should never be enabled or rewarded. I would call my kids on fake crying and whining. It stopped quickly.
“Private complaint made lawfully, private response also made lawfully. This is not a news story.”
True, not breath taking news. Nevertheless, the implications of being brought to task (so to speak) for something so completely innocuous and being told that your actions (putting up a sign with the word bacon on it) are offensive in some way to some one for some reason that has to do with their religion is a bad sign. When something that has nothing whatsoever to do with religion is used as a tool to cow someone and make them retreat from their actions…..it is a bad sign.
It is an even worse precedent to give into such ridiculous whining, because anyone who has ever raised children knows that to give into a tantrum is to just ensure more of them.
The sign was removed of their own free will or perhaps in fear of retaliation for serving bacon. /shrug
When something so trivial is “offensive” then either everything is…..or nothing is. Perspective people.