Muslim Group Sues US Navy Over Right to Wear Beards
A Muslim civil rights group is suing the US Navy on behalf of a former enlisted man who says he was discriminated against because he had a beard.
A Muslim civil rights group has sued the government on behalf of a former Navy enlisted man from Northern California who says he was the target of ethnic slurs, was reassigned to a menial job, and was later denied re-enlistment after seeking permission to wear a beard for religious reasons.
Jonathan Berts of Fairfield applied to wear a beard in January 2011, but Defense Department policy did not allow religious exemptions from grooming requirements. The Pentagon relaxed its policy in January, allowing accommodations for an individual’s religious beliefs, but it came too late to help Berts, said his lawyers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
After his request for a religious accommodation was turned down, Berts, an African American Muslim who had enlisted in 2002, was denied a previously recommended promotion and was subjected to “a barrage of derogatory terms, anti-Islamic slurs, and inappropriate lines of questions about his religious beliefs and loyalty to the United States,” said the lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
Wild Thing’s comment…….
IMO it is not a good idea to relax or let go of rules or standards.
This is just pure BS. The ethnic and religious slurs cannot be proved or even proven false so he’ll probably win his suite. If he does, every Muslim in the military will sue to wear beards. If that happens, I hope Christians do likewise because Jesus and his Apostles had beards and as Christians, we want to be like Christ.
Sounds like an attention whore pushing victimhood. There are now enough muslims in parts of America to start demanding certain exclusive rights and privileges. I hate muslims and I hate the “tolerate Left” who support all these phony lawsuits.
This is not going to bode well for the Navy and the United States.