Usually terse blogger John Aravosis really lays into Target's support of pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions based on personal bigotry-- er, bias -- um ... religious convictions? Personal conscience? No, the latest spin on this now is "diversity"! We must accept bigotry -- aka intolerance of diversity -- in the name of diversity.

John's not buying it.

You have to love Target. They're willing to hire people who don't wan to do the very job they're applying for. And their own employee's bigotry and bias matters more to them than the emergency health needs of their own customers.

So let's ask Target if they also support the following Target employees:

- Check out clerks who verify how fat you are before selling you that package of potato chips?

- Pharmacists who don't want to fill prescriptions for Jewish customers who killed Christ.

- Pharmacists who don't want to help customers who worship a "Satanic counterfeit" (read: "The Pope," in fundie-speak).

- Pharmacists who only dispense HIV medicine to "innocent victims" of AIDS.

- Pharmacists who want proof that women seeking emergency contraception were really raped, and that they didn't "deserve it."

- Pharmacists (or cashiers) who are Christian Scientists - can they refuse to sell any medicine, even aspirin, to anyone?

- Pharmacists who won't sell birth control pills to unmarried women, condoms to unmarried men, or any birth control at all because God doesn't want people spilling their seed.

- Can fundamentalist Christian employees refuse to interact with gay people in any way, shape or form since gays are sinners, abominations, biological errors, and very likely pedophiles?

And that's the point: Providing governmental and corporate cover for personal prejudices in what is supposed to be a trusted profession and what in fact is a government-licensed and government-regulated business smacks of institutional discrimination. And, of course, Target is not alone in backing religious holier-than-thou-ism with the force of corporate lawyers and PR campaigns. There are people who believe women must be punished for having sex, and now, in the 21st century, they have corporate and governmental backing, leaving women to fend for themselves when it comes to healthcare.

What next? Racist doctors refusing to treat "those people"? Parking lots refusing to admit cars with bumper stickers for the "wrong" party? Citizens blocked from attending a governmental event because of their voter registration? --Oh wait, that's already been happening.

This sounds very much like the kinds of things that were happening centuries ago, when a young man and pregnant woman were turned away from an inn and she had to deliver her baby in a manger.

There always will be bigots wrapping themselves in the flag or piety or genetic theories, but do we have to institutionalize their narrowness in order to defend their right to be stupid? Is this the direction we want to be going as a country?

About author

media girl also blogs at other places.