By Vexen Crabtree 2004 Jun 19
This page: People act in all kinds of ways due to all kinds of reasons. When it comes to actions that cause suffering, the basis of the persons' justification doesn't matter, all we are interested in is making it clear the action is not acceptable. When religious ideas of morality, blasphemy and action are institutionalized, inequality always results as other religions are overlooked. This page argues that all special religious rights should be abolished as we are not legislating against religion (as deviant thought is not criminal), but against harmful actions no matter what religion people are.
Contents:
While the Law is based on a rational application of rules designed, in Western Democracies, to allow the greatest amount of freedom without it infringing on others' freedoms1, many religious beliefs conflict with this. It is not a governments job to declare which beliefs are right, so a government must mediate between those who wish to restrict others' freedoms (such as Christians wanting strict Sunday-trading laws), and those who do not subscribe to such beliefs (such as Jews who are happy to work on a Sunday, but wouldn't mind strict Saturday trading laws). If the government submits to one religious belief, it will effectively outlaw the other. In general, the government must create as little religion-specific law as possible, but, sometimes religious beliefs will conflict with much wider laws.
A principal example is blasphemy laws. The Muslim Quran states that the punishment for blasphemy is death; yet, their definitions of blasphemy are so wide that to enforce such superstitions as law would infringe the freedom of many others. The murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, and the attempts on Salmon Rushdie's life are two prime examples (not forgetting the dozens of murders per month that fail to make the headlines[Spencer 2005]). Muslims are often led by their religion to commit illegal acts. Likewise with religions that implore adherents to use certain drugs which are illegal in some countries, or religions (such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam) that recommend strict, but barbaric, food preparation methods that fall foul of any reasonable law against animal cruelty. The stricter the beliefs, the more chance there is, as time progresses, that their dogmas will contradict the slowly expanding legal realms of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The result of all these ancient superstitions mixing with modern freedoms is that religious people either have to overrule aspects of their traditional (intolerant) beliefs, as Western Christians have largely done, or, have to sometimes go against the legal grain of the developed world. This may explain the higher rate of criminal and antisocial activities by religious types, encompassing the growing numbers of Christian fundamentalists caught committing crimes against abortion and sexual health clinics and biological scientists.
An article in The Economist highlights some of the diverse exceptions and religious-specific legislation currently enshrined in law in the West:
“Sikhs in British Columbia can ride motorcycles without helmets; some are campaigning for the right no to wear hard hats on building sites. Muslims and Jews slaughter animals in ways that others might consider cruel; Catholic doctors and nurses refuse to have anything to do with abortion or euthanasia. [...] America's Amish community, fundamentalists who eschew technology, has generally managed to get around the law with respect to social security, child labour and education. [...] In Britain, for example, religious courts or beth din used by Orthodox Jews have been recognised by statute - and in 2002, divorce law was adjusted in a way that acknowledged the role of these bodies. (If a Jewish husband refuses to seek a religious divorce - thus denying his wife the chance to remarry in a synagogue - a civil judge can now delay the secular divorce. [...]In southern Europe, says Marco Ventura, a religious law professor at the University of Siena, Catholics are now more worried about the perceived advance of Islam than about maintaining old entitlements for their faith. "Their dilemma is whether the rights which their faith enjoys can be justified when new ones, like Islam, are appearing in Europe." Some of Italy's Muslims, meanwhile, have been demanding "secularism" in the sense of diluting the Roman Catholic culture of the state, which is epitomised by crucifixes in courtrooms, classrooms and hospitals.”
The Economist (2008)5
There are three options:
2.1. Should we pick one religion and institutionalize it at the expense of all others, and at least be consistent with our discrimination? How would we know which religion to pick? What version of that religion would we pick when all major denominations have large internal variants, opposed on many major areas of morals? The choice would be arbitrary, not based on morals or truth but on a pragmatic census of which sect has most influence and power. Most modern governments have emerged from a history of established religion, modern governments are attempting to be more secular but are often at odds with the remnants of the strong institutions of conservative religious power.
Picking one form of a religion over all others is clearly not acceptable in a world where governments do not force civilians to believe in particular philosophies or theologies, and where there is freedom it seems antidotal to grant extra rights to those who believe in certain things. Instead, government discrimination should be based on logical causes-and-consequences regardless of the religion (or lack of religion) of the citizens who are affected by legislation.
2.2. Should we attempt to include special clauses for all religions and therefore grant fewer rights to those who are not religious? Religious people come up with all kinds of random behavior. It is generally not possible for ordered, mature society to allow religious people to adhere to all their religious rules. For example, we allow Jews and Muslims to use needlessly painful techniques on animals, should we also allow Satanists' the same rights? Granting special religious rights to members of certain religions whilst not granting the right to everyone is unjust. There would be an outcry if Satanists' were granted the same exemptions as Muslims and Jews. This kind of religious discrimination has two solutions, religious exemptions for all or total abolishment of religious rights.
We can allow all religious followers to do what they wish according to the wants of their religion. So, Satanists' can make Human sacrifices, veiled Muslims can avoid security procedures, Christians can refuse to employ gay people, any insane cult can enforce its own morals on the rest of the world. The result would be social anarchy, destruction, pain, misery... basically, we'd go back into the dark ages when superstition and religious barbarianism rules supreme. This path is clearly a backwards step.
2.3. We can drop the special benefits for religious beliefs. So, it is immoral to discriminate against gays on account of their sexuality. Therefore it is immoral even if you are a Christian: your religious beliefs do not protect you from having to uphold societal morals. This overall abolishing of special religious rights promotes equality, an overall sensible and tolerant society where religious beliefs are not capable of undermining morality. Any rights granted to specific members of a specific religion should either be granted to ALL citizens (if they are acceptable rights), or, not granted at all (if they are unacceptable). In either case, referring to particular religions is superfluous and is never necessary.
Clearly governments should always be on the path of secularisation, which protects society as a whole from unacceptable religious behavior and preserves equality and fairness, albeit at the expense of satisfying those who want exemptions for religious reasons (or any other reason). Permissiveness towards religious behavior or insane behavior is a slippery slope back to the dark ages. In reality, as you'd expect in Western commercialist countries, the government normally buckles under political pressure. So, Christian Cathedrals are allowed to sound their loud bells early on Sunday morning. But, Satanists' are not allowed to play equally loud black metal music because it 'disturbs the peace'. The result of this discrimination is that the Satanists' vote is less important than the Christian one. So the government pragmatically grants additional rights simply to the most popular religions - this is the way of pragmatic democracy, but is not the most moral solution.
“The Employment Equality Directive introduced in 2000 requires all Member States to protect against discrimination on grounds of religion and belief in employment, occupation and vocational training. [...] The complexity of [it] comes from the fact that while Europe is committed to upholding religious freedom, it is equally committed to equality and other fundamental freedoms. At times these rights are complementary, [but] in other respects, the rights are in tension, with religious groups failing to recognise equality rights or the right of those outside the religious group.”"Religion and Belief Discrimination in Employment - the EU law", European Commission (2006)
A second complication is to do with what is called reasonable accommodation. This means, if a worker makes a specific request to his employer that has something to do with his beliefs, his employer has to consider it. A denial must, if it is to be legal, be for clear practical purposes and not merely theoretical ones. So an employer cannot reasons that "if loads of Sikhs joined my company, how could I continue to operate if I let them have this?", as this is a theoretical problem. It would be a real problem if specific persons on the roster would be made unhappy at the granting of a specific request.
European Commission (2006)
Such beliefs are probably only defensible under the Employment Equality Directive, in the UK, if they have a certain level of "cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance"3. Thus, it is the case that the person making the complaint of discrimination must prove their level of commitment to their beliefs, and the employer must prove why he cannot accommodate the specific request. The exact details of how such cases will be worked out is not yet clear.
Problems that are discussed in the European Commission document "Religion and Belief Discrimination in Employment - the EU law" (2006) include the problems that by upholding some religious rights, you can infringe on other rights. For example, German Sunday trading laws that protect Christians ideas that Sunday is a 'day of rest', conflict with Jews who, having originally been the authors of the Hebrew scriptures know instead that Saturday (the Sabbath) is the day of rest. As a result, if Jews rest on a Saturday and shops are closed on a Sunday, they in practice cannot shop or use various other services at the weekends. Here it is impossible that national government can accommodate either group. In reality, the secular conclusion is that the government should not take into account the specific requests of either group. Along these lines, most religion-specific legislation would be utterly impractical if it was applied to all religions.
With airport security and Muslim veils, the occasional Muslim demand that women wear a full veil that should never be removed anywhere but the home, conflicts with the basic requirements of security ID checks. Airports have attempted to satisfy reasonable accommodation by offering private rooms with female staff, but hardline Muslims do not accept this either. In such cases, there is no legal way for such Muslims to pass security checks. That this is so is not discrimination, it is simply true that Muslim beliefs create impractical problems for certain aspects of modern life, and it is inappropriate to imply that this is somehow the fault of security procedure.
Sometimes religious requirements can amount to abuse, for example when beliefs lead to parents denying their children important medical care. Religious beliefs should only be given a certain amount of serious consideration when faced with the irrefutable facts of the world. "Further difficulties can arise in the relationship between the protection of religious interests and the principal of non-discrimination on grounds of gender" [European Commission, 2006]. Implied in this is the very restrictive behaviour of some religions towards women, most famously being Christians who cite St Paul's anti-woman 'laws' and Muslims who base wider restrictions on Islamic tradition.
4.1. If someone wishes to kill an animal for food, but refuses to follow modern techniques designed to reduce the pain of the animal (for example Stunning), then it is right that their practise should be outlawed. It doesn't matter why they want to pursue older barbarian practices, their reasons could be due to religion, insanity or stupidity. It is not defendable whether you are a teenage delinquent doing it for kicks, a gothic Satanist doing it to experiment with diabolical religious beliefs, or a Jew or Muslim doing it for food according to their religious beliefs... it is wrong no matter what the reason, religious or not, so there should be no special rights OR, if it *were* deemed acceptable, rights should be granted to everyone. In either case, no reference to religion need be included in legislation. That Jewish and Muslim belief may be at odds with morals is not the fault of morals, or the Jew or Muslim, but nonetheless the greater moral good is not intrinsically anti-Halal, merely pro-animals.
The UK government has recently ignored calls from moral groups who condemn Islamic and Jewish ritual animal slaughter practices as needlessly painful for the animals. Modern stunning techniques grant all the benefits of clean killing, with no pain or pollutants. These modern practices were not available to the authors of the Hebrew texts, so these people think they have a right to abstain from morality in order to indulge their relatively insane religious views. They have no such right - OR - if it was right they could do that, then it should be a right granted to ALL people that animal pain does not matter for food production. Something which would clearly be a step backwards in order to accommodate religious barbarity.
4.2. Discrimination against blacks, gays, etc, is not justifiably enshrined in law. This is true even if you are a Christian who believes the Bible condemns people to slavery, and condemns gays to hell. It doesn't matter if the source of discrimination is Nazism, xenophobia, Christianity or Islam, just because they claim religious reasons does not give people special rights to abstain from the morals of equality.
4.3. If a Muslim refuses to allow herself to be identified, for example by not removing an Islamic veil, they will be unable to pass security checks, and this is their own fault. It doesn't matter what your reasons are: be they insane, religious, anti-establishment or conspiracy theorist: the result is that the person will not be able to pass visual security checks, or to obtain licenses that require photographic identification. It is not anti-Islam to deny security checks to such a Muslim, and it is not really right to say that security staff need to include females on duty just on the off-chance that a religious or insane person refuses to be seen by a male. Such dysfunctional behaviour should not be accommodated, because it then means any dysfunctional behaviour can then claim equal rights.
4.4. Child abuse is immoral in so far as the prospects of the child are harmed. So, if a person denies their child science education or other education, the parent is behaving in an immoral way. This is true whether or not the parents have done so for religious reasons. Cults, conspiracy theorists, outcasts and lunatics are in the same boat as every other parent: Children are required to receive an education.
Presently in the UK, the Vardy Foundation led by the Evangelical Christian Peter Vardy, the used car salesman, has gained permission to open a second fundamentalist Christian school. This is, in my mind, child abuse, and should not go ahead even if he does have sincere religious reasons for doing so.
See my full page on Faith Schools.
4.5. "I killed him and ate him" is not legal for a Brazilian even if he does claim to have done it as part of an ancient religious cannibalistic practice. Cannibalism is either acceptable, in which case all can do it with consenting subjects, or, it is unacceptable and no-one can do it. In either case, referring to specific religions is unnecessary, as it is incorrect to think you need to grant special religious rights.
Crucifixes have been displayed in every Italian classroom since 1924, by rote of law. The following dispute highlights all the issues we are addressing on this page:
“An Italian court in October 2003 ordered the headmaster of a primary school in the town of Ofena to remove the Christian crucifix (a statuette of Christ nailed to a cross) from the wall of a kindergarten in which a 6-year-old Muslim boy was enrolled. The court order came after a 2-year dispute between school authorities and the pupil's father, who was the president of the Italian Muslim Union. Initially the headmaster had agreed to remove the crucifix in that particular classroom. But after a host of complaints from other parents, the crucifix was reinstated. The headmaster then complied with the father's request that the school also display a verse from the Islamic holy book, the Quran: "There is no God but Allah." However, the verse was removed by other parents. [...] Exhibiting a crucifix in schools and public buildings had been required by royal decrees in 1924 and 1928, a ruling reconfirmed in 1984 in an agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the Italian government. [...]
A junior district judge, Mario Montanaro, found in Smith's favor and ordered the state kindergarten in Ofena to remove crucifixes from classrooms. Judge Montanaro stated that Italy was in the process of cultural transformation and that the nation's constitution required that belief systems other than Catholicism be respected. He called the display of crucifixes in classrooms "anachronistic".
Leading officials in the Catholic Church strongly objected.”
"Religion in schools: controversies around the world" by R. Murray Thomas
Even if the situation was resolved and both religious symbols were displayed in the classroom, the cause of the problem would not be solved. A third, fourth and fifth religious display may need to be added to cater for various adherents' children, and some of them would offend others. The whole approach is flawed: There should be no endorsement of any religion in such a public place as a school, and there should be no official sanction of religion anywhere near suggestible children either. To officially endorse a display from one religion automatically signals that other religions are inferior: Some children may not have parents to speak out for them. Atheists and humanists would be especially hard done by if schools started pushing every religion on them!
As long as the religions remain stubborn, irrational and superstitious about such symbols, then, the only possible course of action is not to have any of them displayed. If all the children in the playground constantly fight over a toy, then at some point the teachers are negligent if they do not remove the toy.
The biggest child of them all is, apparently, the Catholic officials who complained. If they peddle irrationality in schools then do they have a right to be offended when further irrationality ensues? An arms-race of prideful religious irrationality easily descends into violence, schism, riot and suffering. Either the Catholics permit tolerance and support the presence of multiple religious symbols, or, they arrogantly demands rights for themselves only and then find themselves (correctly) barred from public presence.
Special religious rights are a travesty of justice and a victory for stupidity. The more special religious rights that exist, the worse society has become and the more democracy is undermined. The most extreme example is the Vatican, where all laws are religious, and there is zero democracy. The government passes laws because it is necessary and because it is for the greater good. The more exceptions there are to those laws, the more democracy is weakened. This seems especially true where religious superstitions replace the rule of law. For example in Islamic states where Sharia law is declared, or during the Dark Ages when Christian superstitions cost many people their lives (not to mention the torture!), society is at its worst. Theocracy is the worst form of government, and special religious rights are exceptional in their ability to uphold discrimination and barbarianism against the face of normal moral legislation. People do not have a right to do anything they wish. Just because something is a persons' religious belief does not give them extra rights to do it.
There are two consistent paths society can take:
or
I have shown that the first path is a dangerous regression to anarchy, whilst the second is the only path that upholds equality, fairness and humanity in the face of antisocial behaviour. We should abolish all special religious rights, and remove all religious exemptions from laws that normal people are subject to.
Coles, Joanne & Reynolds, Jane
"Constitutional and Administrative Law (Key Facts)" (2003). Part of the Key Facts series. UK law. Published by Hodder & Stroughton.
European Commission
"Religion and Belief Discrimination in Employment - the EU law" (2006). Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Unit G.2.
Spencer, Robert
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" (2005). Published in the United States by Regnery Publishing, Inc, Washington, DC.
Thomas, R. Murray
"Religion in schools: controversies around the world" (2006). Published by Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT, USA.
By Vexen Crabtree 2004 Jun 19