When in Muslim countries, non-Muslims must conform their behavior to Islamic sensibilities. When in non-Muslim countries, non-Muslims must conform their behavior to Islamic sensibilities. Got it? Dogs are “unclean” in Islam, with a few exceptions, and so the guide dogs have to go. “Muslim bus drivers refuse to let guide dogs on board,” by Andy Dolan in the Daily Mail, July 18 (thanks to Eleanor):
Blind passengers are being ordered off buses or refused taxi rides because Muslim drivers or passengers object to their ‘unclean’ guide dogs.
One pensioner said he had twice been confronted by drivers and asked to get off the bus because of his guide dog, and had also faced hostility at a hospital and in a supermarket over the animal.
The problem has become so widespread that the matter was raised in the House of Lords last week, prompting transport minister Norman Baker to warn that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved guide dog.
George Herridge and his guide dogNational Federation of the Blind spokesman Jill Allen-King said the problem was common, and ‘getting worse’.
The tension stems from a strand of Islamic teaching which considers a dog’s saliva to be impure….