Discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs should be legal in the workplace

For example, British Airways' rules used to state that employees' "jewellery must be worn out of sight, beneath a uniform" but now certain members of staff are allowed to wear jewellery openly. But who are these specially privileged workers? The senior management? Employees with long-service records? Staff that have received outstanding achievement awards? No, this extra benefit is only extended to workers with religious beliefs - anyone else openly wearing jewellery could be sacked on the spot. (1) Now let's say you were living in America prior to the last election and you turned up for work wearing a pro-Obama peace t-shirt like this one: . http://shop.cafepress.com... Your boss might very well ask you not to wear it for fear of upsetting Republican customers, right? Now let's say you turned up for work wearing an anti-Obama Christian t-shirt like this one: . http://www.christianshirts.net... Your boss might like to ask you not to wear it for fear of upsetting Democrat customers but he couldn't because it symbolises your faith and you are, therefore, protected by law. Okay, now let's say you are offered a job as a bank teller and the manager tells you that your hours of work are 9.30 a. m. to 4.00 p. m. Mondays to Fridays and 9.30 a. m. to 12.30 p. m. on Saturdays. Imagine you are a political activist and your committee meetings are held on Saturday mornings and you explain to the bank manager that you are unable to work on Saturday mornings for that reason but he replies that the hours of work apply to all tellers and that they form part of the contract of employment. What are you going to do? Either give up your political activities or turn down the job, right? Not so if Saturday happens to be the Sabbath in your chosen religion though. You can turn round to your future boss and tell him that you will take the job but he cannot enforce the terms of the contract of employment upon you and make you work Saturdays because contract law is subordinate to national legislation and that if he attempts to either refuse to employ you or penalise you for not working Saturdays you will drag him and the bank through the courts. Now that's not just or equitable, is it? In response to my opponent's final point: "Discrimination is not disallowing holidays it is allowing people to insult people of separate religions due to their religious beliefs. " Holidays are not the real issue here as, while an employer is obliged to grant a religious employee special days off work in respect of their faith, they normally come out of their annual leave entitlement, which is a fairly reasonable comprimise. However, when it comes to slurs, employees are insulted at work for all sorts of reasons - it could be due to their appearance, their personal habits, their political ideals or their religious beliefs. In most cases these matters are dealt with by the way of internal disciplinary procedures but in the case of religious insults the Company can be held vicariously liable for their employees' ill-considered remarks in a court of law and suffer substantial financial losses as a consequence. In the final analysis, someone's life-long, deeply-held political beliefs cannot, and should not, be considered legally less valid than another person's religious beliefs and employers and non-religious co-workers should not be penalised as a result of this legislative assumption. Thank you. (1). http://www.thisislondon.co.uk...