Muslims are Similar to American Anti-Contraception Pharmacists

In the current Pharmacists-for-Life controversy in the States, on a group of pharmacists who refuse to sell birth control, some writers like to make analogies to show just how crazy these pharmacists are and how wrong it is for them to shove their beliefs down others' throats. And guess who is a great analogy for that? Muslims! And racists, naturally.

I usually like this blog, because they write some posts on international reproductive health, but I was not a big fan of this recent post from Reproductive Health Reality Check:

If a pharmacist refused to fill out a Viagra prescription for a black man he saw walking around with his white wife, we would have no problem seeing this behavior as bigotry, even if said pharmacist claimed that Jesus told him to do it. But if a pharmacist refuses to sell birth control pills to a woman who isn't wearing a wedding band, somehow that's legitimate religious expression, even though his rights are extending well past her nose. If Muslim pharmacists started refusing to fill out prescriptions for Christians because those Christians don't share their beliefs, we would have no problem seeing that the religious freedom pinched was that of the customer's, not the pharmacists.

Because you know that's a part of Islam: refusing to give medicine to Christians. What? Sorry, where did you pull that out of?

Earlier post from the same blog:

If, however, we're going to let everyone's political beliefs or religious enthusiasms govern our important life decisions, then we must allow that any political or religious convictions can hold sway. In this case, why not permit a Muslim fundamentalist pharmacist to simply put up a sign politely explaining that his religious beliefs require him to deny a woman's prescription for any medication? No doubt Aryan pharmacists have a belief system too. Why should they be forced to violate their dearly held beliefs and serve blacks?

Because Muslims hate women? I think I remember hearing that sura, in which antibiotics and allergy medication are denied to women. It's a core religious conviction in Islam.

From Feministe:

What happens if next, pharmacists or doctors refuse to serve non-Christians? Or if it comes back to bite them in the ass when, say, a conservative male Muslim paramedic refuses to touch women? Or if religious doctors and pharmacists decide that STDs are appropriate punishments for the sexually active and refuse to fill prescriptions for treatment medicine? Or if a paramedic or doctor refuses to deliver the baby of an unmarried woman?

Cause Muslim men never touch women, and Muslim doctors don't perform thousands of procedures everyday on women. If any man did have qualms about touching women, I doubt he would become a paramedic, which I think is the point of this post: don't become a pharmacist if you can't do the freaking job.

I understand why Muslims are getting thrown into the mix, alongside Aryans (do they mean Iranians and northern Indians?) and racists. It's an attempt to expose the hypocrisy of these right-wing movements, that are all for respecting religion as long as that religion is Christianity. But claiming Muslims would deny medicine to Chrisitans or to women, is smearing Muslims based on common stereotypes:
1) that Muslims hate Christians
2) that Muslims hate women, I mean, they must since they veil them and don't let them drive and don't let them get an education and... 60 other misconceptions people have about Muslim women.

There are other analogies that could be made, such as an orthodox Jew refusing to give out condoms (according to some Talmudic interpretations, birth control is allowed for women but not for men, so pill in, condom out), but of course Jews just aren't as scary as Muslims.

Later in the Feministe post, I think they did a better job with analogy:

Wingers were all up in arms about the Somali women who wanted to wear more traditional clothing to work (even though they were still doing their jobs) and the Muslim cab drivers who wouldn’t pick up passengers who had alcohol on them, but if it’s fundamentalist Christianity that’s an excuse for not doing what you were hired to do, and if it’s women you’re refusing to help, then it’s a-ok.

This exposes the hypocrisy of the right, eager to defend the right of Christians lock-step with their views to exercise their religious views, but quick to lambast Muslims for the same. And this features actual events where Muslims felt that some aspect of their job and their beliefs were at odds, not random hypothetical that accuse Muslims of hating Christians and women. When, from personal experience, I know many who are very fond of both, especially the combination. Oohh!