Khalid Elmasry, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood front group calling itself the Muslim American Society, whines that Americans have become intolerant of Islamic intolerance: Tolerance takes a back seat.

Amazingly, he really is defending the “right” of Muslim cab drivers to refuse service to people carrying alcohol. He doesn’t mention that the cab drivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport also refused service to homosexuals and to blind people with guide dogs, but presumably we’re supposed to be tolerant of that too.

Whatever happened to tolerance in America? International media attention has focused on Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport after many, based on their religious beliefs, refused to transport passengers carrying alcohol. It is forbidden in Islam to consume or transport alcohol. [This statement is false. —ed.]

Unfortunately, much of the attention has been negative and based on false information, including suggestions that declining to transport alcohol is only the beginning and that Muslims are trying to impose their religious beliefs on others. That’s false. Muslims respect the rights of non-Muslims to drink and carry alcohol. We simply ask that our beliefs be equally respected.

Muslim cab drivers are simply trying to earn a living without compromising their beliefs. In the most religiously plural nation on earth, one that claims to champion religious freedom, it seems like a reasonable expectation. However, the discourse has strayed far from reasonableness. Instead, a tone of intolerance of Muslims based on fear and a lack of understanding has dominated the dialogue.

This intolerance has forced the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport commission to cancel an agreement with the cab drivers and the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, which has acted as a mediator. We believe the commission is bowing to public pressure based on bigotry toward Muslims.

This confirms, as Katherine Kersten wrote in the Star Tribune last October, that the Muslim Brotherhood is behind the airport taxi controversy.