Fort Worth's public transportation system is known as "The T". Last Saturday morning, a bus driver for The T kicked a woman and her children off the bus for disruptive behavior. The woman had been reading to her children in a very loud voice.
The driver asked the woman to lower her voice, and she told him "no". Then she continued her loud reading. The driver said rules against loud behavior are posted on every bus, and the other passengers were looking at him like "Are you going to enforce the rules or what?" Since she would not cooperate and obey the rules, the driver stopped the bus and escorted the woman and her children off.
That sounds like the driver was given no choice, and acted within the rules. But the woman saw it differently. The book she was loudly reading from was the Bible. Evidently she thinks that since it was the Bible, that makes her immune to the rules that ALL bus passengers must obey.
The woman called several local TV stations and claimed she had been persecuted because of "religious speech". A spokesman from The T said she was not thrown off the bus for reading the Bible, but for loud and disruptive behavior.
This woman was in the wrong, and had no right to be rude to the other passengers. She has to obey the same rules as any other passenger -- regardless of whether she was reading from the Bible or another book. This is not discrimination.
I'll bet she would have been the first to complain if a fellow passenger was reading too loudly from the Koran!
NOTE -- The T did go the "extra mile" in this instance. The driver called his supervisor, and the supervisor took the woman and her children to their destination -- church. Personally, I think this is more than she deserved.
Well, it was a smart move by the supervisor, at any rate. More ridiculousness though. In a land of common sense and polite manners, another passenger might have simply asked her nicely to be a little quieter, and she would have complied.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably too much to ask for though nowadays...
Jesus addressed this type of showy religiosity in the Sermon on the Mount:
ReplyDelete"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners [and on buses?] to be seen by men [Emphasis added]. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."
"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matthew 6:5-8, NIV)