At Front of Brooklyn Bus, a Clash of Religious and Women’s Rights

[Javaman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/nyregion/bus-segregation-of-jewish-women-prompts-review.html?_r=1&hp

It does not take long to recognize that the B110 bus in Brooklyn is not like others in the city.

The exterior colors are different: red, white and blue. The price for a single ride is the same, $2.50, but MetroCards are not accepted. The bus does not run Friday night or most of Saturday.

But the most obvious sign that the B110 is different was demonstrated Wednesday by Gitty Green, a 30-year-old mother who boarded the bus on Wednesday with her three children and a stroller and headed straight to the back.

As her two older sons perched on the seats behind her, she looked ahead at the men seated in front, mostly Hasidic Jews in wide-brimmed hats, and said, because her religion dictates the separation of the sexes, she never wondered what it would be like to sit with them.

More at link...

[piratefish08]

1. religious freedom does NOT TRUMP HUMAN RIGHTS. period.

EVER.

[ensho]

2. kick

nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. It's a different-colored bus that doesn't accept Metro Cards?

Is it part of the city bus system at all?

But no, if something is against your religion, you just refrain from doing it. You don't force other people to do the same.

If these guys freak at the idea of possibly being in proximity to a woman, then they shouldn't ride the bus.

We had this issue in Minnesota with some of the Somali immigrants, who refused to handle pork products in the grocery checkout line or cab drivers who refused to transport passengers who were carrying alcoholic beverages. The conclusion was that if you can't handle an integral part of the job, you should get another job.