 |
| Praying Muslims or sleeping policemen? |
I remember reading that a Muslim bus driver stopped mid-route to set out a prayer mat and start praying in the aisle.
If you cannot carry out your duties for religious reasons, you should not be in such a position.
The news has been littered with cases where people's religion has not so much hindered, as much as outright precluded such people from carrying out their duties. I'll list just two:
Gary McFarlane
Dismissed as a relationship counsellor by Avon Relate on the grounds that he could not confirm that he would continue to counsel same-sex clients in both relationship counselling and PST with regard to all the sexual issues they may have brought, and that he would agree to carry out relationship work where it involved same-sex sexual issues in line with his acceptance of the group's equal opportunities policy and the British Association for Sexual and Relationship Therapy's Code of Ethics.
At the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Laws stated that "the conferment of any legal protection or preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however rich its culture, is deeply unprincipled." As religious beliefs were by their nature impossible to prove, they were necessarily subjective, and could therefore only be considered to bind the behaviour of the believer and not that of anyone else. He went on to state:
- The promulgation of law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified. It is irrational, as preferring the subjective over the objective. But it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary. We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens; and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic. The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law; but the State, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.
The application was refused.
Shirley Chaplin
Nurse who was supported by the CLC in an unsuccessful bid to sue the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust for discrimination because it had moved her to a desk job after she refused to remove a crucifix on a chain when asked to do so on health and safety grounds (hospital dress code prohibits front-line staff from wearing any type of necklace in case patients try to grab them). The hospital had offered Chaplin a compromise of wearing her cross pinned inside a lapel or pocket. An employment tribunal ruled they acted reasonably in April 2010, rejecting Chaplin's case.
Ms Chaplin intends to appeal against the decision.
As a smoker, I find it awkward to have to admit that this also applies to me, but the fact remains; if I am unable to dedicate myself to the task at hand, I shouldn't be doing a job that requires my undivided attention.
With regard to people that use the toilet a lot? Really? Unless they are just skiving, they probably have very good reason to be excused for natural bodily functions to take their course. Whether or not this is the natural processes of a healthy individual, or some medical condition, is of no consequence. When you have to go, you have to go.
But really! Is this religious discrimination on the part of the employer, or secular discrimination on the part of the employee? It is like a case of the pot calling the kettle spherical; its form fits its function lest it is cast aside as useless.
No comments:
Post a Comment