With the penchant some in America have in following Europe for cultural guidance, it would be prudent to note what is taking place to religious freedom in Britain. Or perhaps it would be better to say what is not taking place. David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent for Britain’s Telegraph, has recently written about the plight of two women, Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin, who claim they were discriminated against when their respective employers dismissed them for wearing a cross.
Mrs Eweida, a British Air worker, first appealed the decision to an employment tribunal, then to a Court of Appeal and was finally denied permission to take it to the Supreme Court. Mrs. Chaplin, a nurse for 31 years, was barred from working on the wards because she “refused to hide the cross she wore on a necklace chain”. The women have been joined by others, including a former registrar who objected to conducting civil partnership ceremonies for homosexual couples, and a counselor who was dismissed for refusing to give sex therapy to a same-sex couple, in taking their grievances to the European Court of Human Rights.
What is absent in all of this is the government’s willingness to defend the rights of these people to express their faith, characterizing the appeal to the European Convention on Human Rights as “manifestly ill-founded”. Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights deals with freedom of worship and states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in a community with others in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.¹
It seems that the British government’s refusal to support these folks in their battle is based on the premise that wearing a cross is “not a requirement of faith” for Christians, and therefore does not fall under the same protection of Article 9 as that for a Sikh turban or a Muslim hijab. Barrett quotes the government’s position:
. . . the applicants wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was not a manifestation of their religion or belief within the meaning of Article 9, and . . the restriction on the applicants’ wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was not an ‘ interference ‘ with their rights protected by Article 9.¹
The Foreign Office further states:
In neither case is there any suggestion that the wearing of a visible cross or crucifix was a generally recognized form of practicing the Christian faith, still less one that is regarded (including by the applicants themselves) as a requirement of the faith.¹
It is obvious that a government that has no will to defend a freedom, leaves its citizens without that freedom. But, I also wonder what a “generally recognized form of practicing the Christian faith” would look like in a spiritual environment as diverse as America’s. With this as a standard it might well be said that no outward demonstration of faith would be general enough to pass “a requirement of faith”.
Andrea Williams, the Director of the Christian Legal Centre of the UK sees what has transpired lately in the UK and foresees the future:
In recent months the courts have refused to recognize the wearing of a cross, belief in marriage between a man and a woman and Sunday as a day of worship as ‘core’ expressions of the Christian faith.
What next? Will our courts overrule the Ten Commandments?¹
Finally, Ms. Williams, you have touched on an area where America is leading.
¹All quotes from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9136191/Christians-have-no-right-to-wear-cross-at-work-says-Government.html
Photo:PA
Crusaders Church of Bloomington 