A Lyft Ride That Took a Wrong Turn

If you’re a conservative, you might want to think twice about ordering a Lyft ride, the taxi company that provides transportation on demand via an app on your phone.

Just last week, four women – Julie Lane, Linda Serbu, Brandi Kruse, and Tara Faul – were ordered out of their Lyft ride in Portland, Oregon after the driver learned they were supporters of the “Save Women’s Sports” movement and had just attended a rally to protest men being allowed to invade girls’ athletics.

After the driver questioned where they were coming from, he simply pulled the car over and demanded they exit the vehicle. When they protested, he told them, “It’s my own private car, and I can cancel any ride I want to, and you don’t belong in my car.”

Only the Portland City Code suggests otherwise. It reads:

“No TNC driver may … refuse to transport to a requested destination within Portland any passenger of proper demeanor whose request for service has been accepted on the TNC app.”

Despite the driver’s bravado, a Lyft spokesperson appeared to come to the defense of the four women.

“Everyone deserves to feel safe and respected on the Lyft platform, and discrimination of any kind has no place in our community,” the company responded in a statement. “Our Safety team was in contact with both the rider and the driver involved and we are continuing to review the incident.”

Ironically, the four women weren’t even the people the driver apparently assumed they were. One of them, Linda Serbu, told the publication Outkick, “And just to clarify, we were two lesbians and two bisexual women.”

The rise in sexual confusion has seemed to incite confusion in other areas of life, too.

The incident is also a reminder that the war on women’s sports has also brought together unlikely allies – and that is a very good thing.

As I’ve long said, the happiest and most successful people are those who can disagree without being disagreeable. This is a currency that seems in short supply today – and was certainly absent from the offending Lyft driver.

I know nothing about this individual, but we’re all guilty from time to time of drawing unfair or untrue conclusions about people we think we know. As a Christian, I feel compelled to always try and assume the best intentions of another person.

A.W. Tozer said, “Always it is more important that we retain a right spirit toward others than that we bring them to our way of thinking, even if our way is right.”

That perspective comes right out of Scripture. In Luke 6:27-28, Jesus says, “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.”

In verses 32-33, He says, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”

If that strikes you as difficult to do, it should. We can’t do it in our own human strength. Loving people with whom we disagree requires the Spirit of God to work through us.

We should never compromise our convictions to get along with the world. But neither should we allow our convictions to keep us from showing the world what it means to love like Jesus.

Perhaps this incident will encourage drivers like this Lyft contractor to lift their sights a little higher, ask more questions and remember that people deserve respect—even when we disagree with them.