There’s a bit of a furore at the moment about a Christian woman who’s been suspended by British Airways for refusing to remove her crucifix pendant, while Muslim and Sikh employees are allowed to wear headscarves and turbans. The situation is widely perceived as being one of religious discrimination.
Firstly, this is clearly not discrimination: BA has not suspended an employee because of her religion; I’d bet that the majority of their employees are nominally Christian. There is nothing in Christianity that requires it’s adherents to wear a crucifix at all times, much less display one openly, so it’s clearly simply a matter of personal choice on the part of this employee to do so. That choice conflicts with the dress code of her employer, to which she agreed when accepting the job. As far as I’m concerned BA has every right to enforce that dress code, and where an employee has chosen not to follow it, then she should be disciplined.
But isn’t this something of a double standard on BA’s part? After all, other religions are allowed expressions of their faith on the job, so why not Christians? Well, it clearly is a double standard on one level, but I don’t think it’s as bad as people are making out. Headscarves and turbans are both items of clothing, and can be made to look very smart and professional. A crucifix pendant, on the other hand, is an item of jewellery. That’s something quite different, and many companies with a dress code explicitly prohibit jewellery of all kinds because it doesn’t look either smart or professional. Yes, Muslims are allowed to wear the headscarf, but I’m sure they don’t get to wear pendants displaying the crescent moon openly. It’s not a question of whether staff are allowed to express their religion, it’s a question of whether that expression can be made to fit in with the company’s desired image.
This is another case of someone thinking they have the right to break the rules, just because their reasons for doing so are religious (and throwing highly charged words like discrimination into the debate in the hope it’ll have a chilling effect on counter arguments). It really is time that we, as a secular society, stopped giving religious opinions and desires more weight simply because they are religious. Why should a Christian think they have the right to wear a Christian logo around their neck, where nobody would expect to get away with wearing (say) their favourite football team’s logo in the same way?
Another (more serious) current case of the same thing is the classroom assistant who’s recently been suspended for refusing to remove her veil in class, and is, unsurprisingly, taking the case to industrial tribunal. In this case, not only is the Niqab not required by the Koran in front of Children (or arguably at all,) but it actually harms her ability to do her job (unlike the BA case, which is just a case of corporate image.) I fully support her right to interpret the Koran in any way she likes, and to dress in any way she likes. No one has the right to tell another person that they cannot dress in any way they choose, but they do have the right not to employ that person if that choice impacts their ability to perform the duties for which they would be employed.
Again, no-one would think she had any point at all if it wasn’t a religious stance that he has to cover her face. No-one batted an eyelid a few months back when people started telling teenagers to take off their baseball caps and hoodies; no-one branded that discrimination, but as soon as someone has a religious reason for covering their face, suddenly they have different rules applied? It’s just nonsense. It’s divisive and, ironically, discriminatory against those of us who don’t have a religion.
