The Somali Muslim community of Minneapolis has been in the headlines a lot this week as the clash between a number of conservative Muslim airport cabbies, who say that their religion prohibits them from transporting passengers carrying alcohol (or, in a more contested claim, disabled passengers with service animals like seeing-eye dogs), is coming to a head with the adoption of a set of airport guidelines that will penalize such refusals. According to the Star-Tribune, nearly 100 passengers are turned away a month by (mostly) Muslim cabbies following strict interpretations of the Koran. Further, a local imam has recently declared that taxi drivers should turn away customers carrying alcohol, and other incidents, concerning a number of Minnesota Target clerks refusing to scan and bag pork products, has only exacerbated the tensions.

Predictably, now that the conscience clause claims are on the other foot, conservative media outlets that were quick to defend the right of Christian pharmacists to refuse women birth control prescriptions, are even quicker to denounce this blurring of religious and secular laws...