Seventh-Day Adventist Blackjack Dealer Demands The Right Not To Touch Playing Cards
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (JYB News Bureau)-- For Marvin McJimpsey, Vegas is truly Sin City. His faith prohibits playing cards, but his job as a blackjack dealer at the Luxor Casino requires him to shuffle, deal, and slide cards across the green felt to eager gamblers who don't seem to appreciate the profound conflict of conscience McJimpsey's job entails.
McJimpsey belongs to the Seventh Day Adventists, a conservative Christian denomination whose doctrines forbid drinking, gambling, and dancing.
"Dude, are you deaf?" demands Jeff Chen, a florist from Pasadena, who has a four showing. "I said hit me!"
"I'm sorry, sir," replies McJimpsey. "You'll have to take the card yourself. For religious reasons, I'm not allowed to touch them." After walking around the table to pick up his card, Chen cashes out leaves the casino, complaining that someone with religious objections to touching cards "probably shouldn't be dealing blackjack for a living".
Casino manager Ray Warner says that Luxor has tried to accommodate McJimpsey's needs. "We tried moving him behind the bar, but he says he can't touch alcohol, and all the patrons were having to mix their own drinks if they wanted anything stronger than a soda pop." Trying to employ him elsewhere, they let him run the sound for an adult-themed evening show. "Unfortunately, Marvin was a bit put off by the nudity and demanded that if he were to continue working here, the girls were going to have to cover up. So he's back at the tables for now."
Warner refused to comment for the record on whether he had considered firing McJimpsey, but a source within Luxor who is familiar with the case said that "the last thing we need is a religious discrimination lawsuit, and we sure don't want trouble with the Council on Seventh-Day-Adventist Relations."
When asked why he stays with Luxor instead of moving to a less problematic job, McJimpsey says it is a matter of principle. "Why shouldn't I stand up for myself? America is a pluralistic country. I think it's time that the casino business started accommodating people of all religions, and stopped engaging in seventhdayophobia." At this point McJimpsey tapped a patron on the shoulder and asked him to extinguish his cigarette, explaining that despite Luxor's policy allowing smoking on the casino floor, "my religion does not allow tobacco to be consumed." The surprised man left the casino with a stream of cursing.
"More seventhdayophobia," clucked McJimpsey.
McJimpsey's case is part of a trend of people taking jobs that obviously conflict with their deeply-held principles, and then complaining about it to get the requirements changed. Recently cab drivers in Minneapolis requested the right to refuse to serve passengers carrying alcohol and dogs--even seeing eye dogs. Also in Minneapolis this month, a Somali cashier at a Target store refused to touch pork products as she scanned groceries, asking customers to do so instead because her Muslim faith prohibited touching pork.
Similarly, in Washington D.C. in January, the Democratic party assumed majorities in both the House and the Senate, and with it an obligation to defend the country. But due to their deep aversion to American military victories, they have announced plans to defund and abandon the Iraq war and abandon Iraq to Islamist fanatics and the terrorists they support.
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This is of course a parody, although sadly the events described in the last two paragraphs are real. No disrespect is intended to the Adventists, who have a thoughtful policy on employer/employee relations (see item 9). It was originally going to be a Mormon working at Starbucks and refusing to touch the coffee, but I thought this was funnier.