Since my argument about point C is coming across as pedantic rather than essential it might be worth recapping why I find this to be an distinction for this discussion.
A severe sufferer of peanut allergies should not work at a Vietnamese restaurant. There is no reasonable accommodation in my opinion. One could, though, imagine such a person employed at a restaurant where there was an understanding they make everything but the one peanut dish on the menu. Perhaps a customer loves that dish and comes in for it. The chef tells another staff member that they have an allergy and asks them to make it instead. The staff member misunderstands and tells the customer they can't have the dish because the chef has a peanut allergy. It hits the papers and so on.
Now, we could imagine people saying that if you can't make the full menu you shouldn't have the job, fire that person. I get that, even if I view it as a massive overreaction to a trivial issue. If people started spouting off about how this peanut allergy guy was pushing his allergy on other people denying them their right to peanuts, that they were sick and tired of these peanut allergy people affecting society and they should ensure their allergies don't bother anyone else.... well, most people would view that as pretty intolerant. At least I would.
Ah, but the JW lady was making a choice.
Yes, true. But then let's agree that the central issue is not the right to a side dish. The issue is not about discriminating against the non-peanut allergic, the issue is not about an anti-peanut agenda being forced on others, and the issue is not about the inconvenience itself. The salient detail is that the issue arises from a religious conviction rather than something else. Even in an identical situation we may tolerate one class or group differently from another.
A similar thought experiment can be repeated with a vegetarian and a single meat dish, a person with a phobia about lobster handling a single seafood dish, or even a single dish requiring a microwave treatment and my friend and his view on wireless waves, etc. I suspect we will find even more people who find this intolerable. They might say, "Take your vegetarian agenda, your lobster phobia, your irrational EMR fear and leave them the heck at home."
But they weren't, in this scenario. They merely asked someone else to make the dish and it was misunderstood. Why can't we be reasonable and tolerant of each others in these matters even if we strongly disagree? We want people to tolerate us, after all.
This is why, at the beginning on page one, I asked Cofty if he was against reasonable accommodation in general or just when it came to religion. If, in the exact same situation, we are willing to accommodate certain groups but not others, then we are showing we have more tolerance for some groups than others. If it is belonging to a group that makes the action objectionable and not the event itself we have to look and see if there might be some intolerance at play. If we would not have gotten up in arms about a vegetation in the exact same misunderstanding scenario than perhaps we have an intolerance toward religion and toward people who are religious.
PS - I feel that had I used the word intolerance instead of the synonym bigotry we might not have gotten bogged down in definitions.
