Where faith and work collide

He left shaking his head. A moment later, Tsega Maoln, who runs the beauty parlor upstairs, popped in for an extra-large can of Comet cleanser. An Ethiopian immigrant, Maoln is Muslim, but not orthodox; she was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and gossiping about a recent night at a bar with friends. Even so, she said she believed more traditional values must be accommodated.

"You don't think they should change the taxi rules for you, do you?" Psihos demanded.

Maoln, 39, tried to formulate an answer.

"You better think twice," Psihos warned, "or you'll lose a customer!"

Maoln busied herself digging cash from her purse.

Federal law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for religious beliefs -- so long as that doesn't place an "undue burden" on the business. Defining undue burden, however, can be tricky. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission handled 2,541 complaints of faith-based discrimination last year, up nearly 50% from a decade earlier.

Last fall, the Minneapolis transit authority cited the reasonable accommodations law in promising not to assign a driver to buses that carried ads for a local gay and lesbian magazine called Lavender. The driver had objected to the ads -- which carry the slogan "Unleash Your Inner Gay" -- on religious grounds.

The law has also been used to aid Muslim employees. Managers often allow Muslim workers to schedule their breaks to coincide with the five-times-a-day prayer. Target last week reassigned its Muslim cashiers to jobs that don't require handling pork, such as stocking shelves. Other chains have also made such accommodations.

But the taxi driver dispute has resisted easy solutions.

About 70% of the more than 900 drivers licensed to work at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are Somalian immigrants, spokesman Patrick Hogan said. In the last five years, 4,854 passengers have been denied service because they carried alcohol.

The Somalis contend that all those passengers were quickly seated in another cab. Just as there are smoking and no-smoking taxis, they say, there should be alcohol and no-alcohol cabs.

"Nobody asks you what's in your luggage," said driver Abikar Abdulahi, 24. "But if it's in a box that we can see, we can't take it."

If they ever did knowingly transport alcohol, the drivers say, they would have to answer to God on Judgment Day.