At a hearing last month, Dahbi told an unsympathetic administrative-law judge that Spitzer and Thornton were doing more than just G-rated canoodling. He said they were kissing “heavily” and “touching all over each other” — including “on the chest and the breast.”...
Each woman was awarded $5,000 for emotional distress, in addition to a $5,000 fine Dahbi was ordered to pay the city.Dahbi was found guilty of denying them a “public accommodation due to their sexual orientation.”
April 11, 2015
NYC cab driver fined $15,000 for telling his 2 women passengers not to kiss.
"TV producer Christina Spitzer and her actress girlfriend, Kassie Thornton, said they barely exchanged a peck in the back seat early into their ride when hack Mohammed Dahbi became enraged."
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73 comments:
That's why you don't want administrative law.
Mo was right. I mean, for Tank, for Laslo, for lots of us, this would be more distracting than texting and sure to lead to an accident.
Unless they let us jump in the back and participate.
Then it is fine.
But officer, they were filming a cheap porn movie in the back seat.
If one of them had had a pet pig, he would have won under RFRA.
If I were a cabbie, I would be offended if heterosexuals engaged in heavy petting in my cab, too. Aren't there laws against such things? What do they call them - "public decency laws?"
If I were a cabbie, I would be offended if heterosexuals engaged in heavy petting in my cab, too. Aren't there laws against such things? What do they call them - "public decency laws?"
"Tank said...
Mo was right. I mean, for Tank, for Laslo, for lots of us, this would be more distracting than texting and sure to lead to an accident.
Unless they let us jump in the back and participate. "
Sure , for these two. Not in Madison, though. Ugh.
Anti-Muslm prejudice!
Tolerance is not that hard to do. Even Muslims can learn to do it if the want to.
Or we can assist Iran with acquiring Nuclear Strike Capacity to make Muslims feel proud, and then they will automatically become tolerant. Well maybe after first slaughtering all of the Jew Species found in Israel and NYC.
Tolerance to whims of Muslim men is also called Sharia Living.
Reverse Islam. The word of a man means nothing when placed against the word of a woman.
These things are much less likely to happen with Uber or Lyft.
Give people choices. Works every time it's tried.
Oh, and I am not Laslo.
“Keep that for the bedroom or get out of the cab,” Dahbi shouted during the trip from Columbus Circle to Brooklyn’s Sunset Park.
Dahbi also never said anything about homosexuals.
I'm siding with the muslim on this one.
If a cab is a "public accommodation," it is not your home, and you have no "expectation of privacy;" in fact these women were engaging in a "public display of lewd and lascivious conduct," and the cabdriver had every right in the world to demand that they either behave themselves or get out of his cab.
Surprising no RFRA for Muslims. I thought liberals were all about cutting slack for the Mooslims. Gays (not women ever) trump Muslims.
Two guys kissing..."hey, knock it off"!
Two women kissing..."Hold on, I wanna sell tickets!!!"
Could a taxi driver tell a man and a woman making out in the back seat to knock it off? Isn't it "Get a room," not "Get a cab?"
If a same sex couple is being treated the same way as a straight couple, it's not discrimination.
If I were a taxi driver, I would not want people getting into it in my cab, just because I wouldn't want to have to clean up after them!
Tank - you are right. The fact that I didn't react that way just proves I am a woman. Yes, it would be distracting as hell for the driver.
This probably is discrimination against Muslims.
If the cabbie has "friends" this may not end well for the two women. Sadly
If you researched NYC ordinances still on the books, I bet you could find several by which the taxidriver should be charged and punished for allowing such conduct in his cab.
Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. It's the ham sandwich nation.
So glad I am retired.
And -- while driving the lesbian make-out session -- if the Cab Driver started to masturbate instead, he'd STILL be the one in trouble.
Sometimes you can't win.
I am Laslo.
Also, by the name, I am guessing that this taxidriver was a Somali, and for most of the Somali tribes, this really is a big deal.
Holy crap. Not only does "public accommodation" mean you have to bake cakes and arrange flowers for same-sex weddings, not only does it mean you have to serve same-sex couples in your establishment, you also have to allow same-sex in your establishment.
Is there a reverse time-capsule we can use to send today's headlines back to 1868, just so that the people who enacted the Fourteenth Amendment can see what they're putting the Constitution?
Emotional distress ain't what it used to be.
How are 2 women (or 2 men) who are told not to kiss supposed to know whether male-female couples are not told the same thing?
Can a cab driver have an across-the-board no-kissing rule? If not, there's no proof problem to struggle with. In any case, I think there's so much kissing in cabs that gay couples are right to assume that when they're told not to kiss, it's because they are gay and it's not surprising that the judge wouldn't believe it was not discrimination.
A separate question is whether he could have (or did) claim some kind of religious need to object to gay but not straight kissing. Would any of you who support religion-based exemptions accept a cab driver forbidding gay kissing (but not heterosexual kissing) in his cab?
More proof that exercise of your civil rights can be bad manners.
How are 2 women (or 2 men) who are told not to kiss supposed to know whether male-female couples are not told the same thing?
Law that you can't figure out is the best kind today.
That's the Greek figure Random with the donkey's tail and the blindfold in front of the courthouses.
As a cab driver my fears would be:
1. Getting robbed;
2. Getting shot;
3. Getting robbed, then shot (or vice versa);
4. Getting shot by hot lesbians.
5. Having sex with the hot lesbians, then getting shot.
Although the first part of #5 is still good.
The kissing I don't have a problem with.
I am Laslo.
Please, I have been blown in the back of a cab.
This is awesome - a Threefer of professionals victim class clashes!
Where does freedom of speech enter into this discussion?
If cabbies are not allowed to comment on passengers' behavior (gay, straight, lesbian, etc) is there freedom of speech being trampled on?
I am a psychologist, not a lawyer. My inquiring mind wants to know.
As a psychologist, I think people need to respect others' boundaries. Making out in the back of a taxi violates the boundaries of the person providing a service for you, in order to make a living. It's vulgar, but I guess expected when people are drunk and horny.
If the diver is Somali born, he believes that any kind of "public display of affection" is at the very least unseemly.
How are 2 women (or 2 men) who are told not to kiss supposed to know whether male-female couples are not told the same thing?
Should it really matter? Why is the state involved here?
I'm siding with the muslim on this one.
Me, too. Appeal, Mohammed! Take this to the highest court in the land. Just like being Muslim isn't a license to hang homosexuals from construction cranes, being queer isn't a license to outrage everybody's morality, especially in public.
"Aren't there laws against such things? What do they call them - "public decency laws?"
Sexist !
Not any more and I was kidding about sexists. Please don't hurt me.
"If a same sex couple is being treated the same way as a straight couple, it's not discrimination."
Exactly. And the cab driver insists there was more than just kissing going on. Apparently, one felt the other up.
How are 2 women (or 2 men) who are told not to kiss supposed to know whether male-female couples are not told the same thing?
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Also, they could ask.
Instead, Achbar will become radicalized as a result of this, and blow up a gay wedding.
And I won't stop him.
Are we building a society where the person who can take the most umbrage/hold the biggest grudge leads the way? What kind of free time do these women have to pursue an actual case here? Although at $5k per for emotional distress maybe they made the right choice.
I dunno, I've been insulted a few times and treated poorly by service workers, but I never thought about doing much other than complaining to their company. I'm not even all that comfortable with thinking "I'm going to get this jerk fired," although if it was a question of safety I guess I might. Maybe things are different for members of minority or protected classes. I'm sure it would have been difficult to find another, LBGT-friendly, ride in a city as intolerant and backwards as NYC.
DeTocqueville in his book on the Ancien Regime wrote of the French aristocratic woman who was so contemptuous of her servants that she would disrobe in front of them, like they were dogs. If it truly was just a peck on the cheek, I side with the women. If it was a heavy make out session, I go with Mo. It's extremely contemptuous of the driver to treat him as though he doesn't exist.
We live in transitive times. However, the trans-equality movement is not over, it is just beginning; and the moral hazards it is creating, including selective exclusion, will need to be reconciled. Still, the collateral damage created by the trans-equality... or more correctly, trans-superiority movement, is objectively less than created by the female-superiority movement. While both are based on the propagation and enforcement of selective exclusion, as were the civil rights movements that preceded and accompany them.
That said, the Constitution and Amendments protect individual rights and orientations, but not necessarily group rights and behaviors, other than in the exception. However, since the excision of one of the named parties, Posterity, the remainder of the Constitution became progressively fungible and selective, and thus worthless.
William:
That's a perspective which is worth acknowledging. The transsexuals knowingly and probably with malicious intent (a la marriage, artistry, procreation, etc.) acted with contempt to denigrate the driver's dignity. Only someone completely isolated and insulated would not have reasonable awareness of the driver's moral orientation and only an activist would not moderate their behavior in the public space.
Perhaps these transsexuals were engaged in an undercover sting. Has any old or new news agent reported? Has the DOJ intervened with bias and prejudice to claim a generic violation of individual rights by a class of people?
Anyway, selective normalization has consequences. This is the beginning, not end of the trans-superiority movement. Madonna has either anxiously or eagerly identified the likely next step in transsexuality.
Tank said...
If one of them had had a pet pig, he would have won under RFRA.
4/11/15, 9:44 AM
They had a dog.
The only real problem here is the $15k fine.
This looks like a case where two members of the Association of the Perpetually Offended acted out in a manner intended to provoke a desired response. Mission accomplished, and civil society is the loser.
Does NYC have a clear policy, either in explicit regulation or mandatory training for cabbies, about what kind of behavior is acceptable in cabs and how much discretion a cabbie has to regulate behavior in his (or her) cab?
If they do, then we should look to that. If not, I think a cabbie should have considerable latitude to define rules of conduct in his cab. In particular, we should not blithely assume that homophobic animus motivated his demand to stop making out -- we should look to other evidence about what happened. If the quote that Fen cited is accurate, it suggests that the objection was to the degree of PDA, not its homosexuality.
In particular, I think Althouse's suggestion that lots of kissing goes on in other cabs, so we ought to assume it does not bother this particular cabbie, is ludicrous. Our society is not one where the popularity of a particular belief defines whether you may hold it.
15k is a ton of money for a cabbie, especially for just a few words. It's class warfare.
Muslims are a natural constituency for Republicans.
Muslims have a lot of the same Socially Conservative belief's that Christian Republicans have.
It's funny to me how everyone seems to assume that there are two groups in the United States. Fiscal Conservatives and Fiscal Progressives.
Conservative Republicans could make a lot of gains in the Black community, Hispanic community and Muslim community if they'd focus more on the differences between Democrats and Republicans vis a vis social conservatism rather than our differences in Immigration policy, or foreign policy, or whatever else the media uses to divide us.
Gabriel said...
, not only does it mean you have to serve same-sex couples in your establishment, you also have to allow same-sex in your establishment.
“I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.” -- B. Hope
“I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.” -- B. Hope
OK, so we've had bakers and photographers and cab drivers all publicly branded as hateful bigots who should be utterly destroyed.
What about someone in the sex industry? If a prostitute refuses to provide her (or his) services to a person of the same sex who seeks to hire her (or him), is that wrongful discrimination against gays? Should she (or he) be punished with heavy fines?
"How are 2 women (or 2 men) who are told not to kiss supposed to know whether male-female couples are not told the same thing?"
But this incident isn't about kissing in a cab. It's about having standards of behavior in the back of a cab. Obviously, both gay and straight people kiss in backseats all the time whether with Muslim drivers or not. Seems clear from his statement this cabbie disapproved of groping in his cab. Why not take that at face value? In NY, some Muslim cabbies have publicly refused to drive cabs that have strip club advertising on the roof and no one doubts that's about public stndards.
Why wasn't his religion taken into account and they be fined for insulting his religion????
Well?
It's funny, but the refrain: "get a room", used to be an acceptable and accepted comment in polite company. We live in transitive times.
Paul:
There is a pecking order. Black Americans know all too well that they are at the bottom of the pro-choice order. Well, above wholly innocent human lives, but skimming the rivers of blood and recycled body parts left in the wake of the abortion industry's progress. Muslims will soon learn their rightful place in the social complex. Christians, not apostates, only have leverage through their native and numerical advantage, but are shriveling on the vine under the State-established Church (e.g. government) and religion (e.g. law). The heady days of classical liberalism are waning in the progress of degenerative libertinism.
TV producer Christina Spitzer and her actress girlfriend, Kassie Thornton, said they barely exchanged a peck in the back seat early into their ride when hack Mohammed Dahbi became enraged.
I don't see why their version of events is given more credence other than they are white, female, and gay.
It probably is worth an appeal. Get a different judge and see if it flies elsewhere.
And the $15k probably means more to the cabbie than to a wealthy TV producer.
Someone should start a GoFundIt campaign for the cabbie and pay his fine. Seriously. This is the kind iof case RFRA was designed for.
I second Michael P. at 1243, for the most part. Are taxi drivers always independent businessmen? Or does the fact that he's driving a Yellow Cab mean he follows company policy? or even if he is driving a company car he is allowed to make the rules about passenger conduct? No idea. I use taxis on average about once a year.
To respond to AA's question at 1031, my answer would be 'no'. Airlines, trains, buses, subways, cabs.
Please, I have hade Muslim cab drivers toss my salad in their cabs.
I am impartial to Egypt and Algeria
If you can't tell two people who are nauseating you in the backseat of your cab, faggots or not, to take it on the road, you may as well lock the rear doors, step out, and do the thing with the gasoline can. It's your cab! Hostile work environment! What the actual? What is the cabbie, chopped liver? A robot? A monkey? He should have said they called him a nigger.
n.n.,
Please stop posting. Your screeds are so dense, repetitive, and monotonous, not to say monomaniacal, that even though I can see you have a good heart, are trying to respond to other posters, and are not a robot, you're simply unreadable.
I say this without heat. But you need to look outside yourself and see the trash that you are writing. It is - you are doing a wonderful simulation of a Perl script. Totally numbing. Please get a Strunk and White and look up "paragraphs."
Titus said...
Please, I have hade Muslim cab drivers toss my salad in their cabs.
I am impartial to Egypt and Algeria
Titus, that's not the issue.and that's between you and the cabbie. The issue is whether you forced an unwilling third party to watch it and then sued them for complaining.
The essence of modern Gaystapo legal tactics: "sue someone for complaining" -- it's a terrible strategy in a losing war.
Unknown:
I usually confine my arguments to principle. Because of this it is inevitable that I will cross someone's personal space. What, specifically, is your personal interest?
From the structure and content of your comment, it may be opposition to individual moderation. Is it my frequent integration and criticism of human and civil rights euphemisms? Not a few people have found it discomforting to be constantly reminded of their "choice".
When they say it's a "free country" what they mean is that not only can you kiss and grope someone in a cab, but it also means you can own a cab and throw someone out of it.
But then they made it impossible to run a cab without a "license" and made us less free. Then they used the license to mandate behavior.
Our country doesn't really understand what freedom means anymore because we have been regulated to death. They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
N.n.,
I am with you that abortion is the taking of a human life - I don't know if you want to get into the weeds on IUDs and all that - certainly a surgical abortion is homicide, and, with the exception of necessity to save the life of the mother, should be well nigh unthinkable.
There may be always some shaggy dog special case but at a million a year, we're beyond special cases and into, as I believe you say, normalization. I also agree that this seems part and parcel with other forms of degradation of human life, morality, civilization and all good things that we here on this pinnacle seem to overlook nowadays.
My problem with you, n.n., is that for lack of better words, you are a droning, humorless scold, and whatever I may think of your style as a literary effort, I believe that it detracts from the effectiveness of your message and the legitimacy of your cause.
My disagreement with you is aesthetic, not one of substance, but that does not mean that it is unimportant. Not if you wish to marshal support for your views. If you just want to hear yourself talk, by all means carry on. But I think you would be more persuasive writing differently.
Ah yes, the repetitive 'integration and criticism of the euphemism,' I think that's a part of what I mean. It's not stylistically effective. You really beat it to death and beyond. You're just grinding metal.
chick, I don't believe in suing people.
The dykes should of walked out of the cab and said fuck you.
The less contact with people the better.
tits.
pm317 said: "Surprising no RFRA for Muslims. I thought liberals were all about cutting slack for the Mooslims. Gays (not women ever) trump Muslims."
In societies in which Muslims are a minority, Muslims are obsessed with "minority rights".
In societies in which Muslims are the majority, there ARE NO "minority rights".
So we see that the "LGBT" suit trumps the "Muslim" suit.
So, this cabbie was a crazed, gun-toting, right-wing Tea Party Christian, no doubt. Oh, wait...
At first I was miffed that these women were awarded $5,000 apiece for their emotional distress. But now I am enlightened and my consciousness raised:
I would like to see this heroic couple walk right past every Christian-owned pizza joint without harassing them, and knock on the door of every mosque asking to have them perform a lesbian wedding.
Because Tolerance, friends!
I've got no sympathy for the Muslim cab driver. He accepted the benefits of a state enforced monopoly, and should not be able to impose his religious beliefs on those subjected to his monopoly. I remember when the muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis didn't want to pick people up with duty free liquor from the airport -- this is the same thing. End the state monopoly, and I'd be happy to let this guy drive, or not drive, whomever he wishes -- and then we would all have the freedom to take Uber instead.
He accepted the benefits of a state enforced monopoly, and should not be able to impose his religious beliefs on those subjected to his monopoly
So the state is justified in restricting this guy's freedom because the state had restricted freedom earlier?? Huh? How do you blame this guy for the conditions that the state itself created?
The government gets to create unfree conditions and then use that to make things even more unfree?
He didn't "accept" the benefits of a state enforced monopoly. Rather, he was forced to participate in that monopoly, his employment was conditioned upon that government protected monopoly.
I'm sure that he would be all too happy, in addition to being free to say what goes on in his cab, also being free to own and operate his own cab without the state's interference in licensing, etc.
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