Today Liberty returns to court. After the victory last week of personal privacy over blanket stop-and- search powers in the Court of Human Rights, we go to the Court of Appeal to protect freedom of thought, conscience and religion from unjustified intrusion and prejudice.
You may remember the story of Nadia Eweida, the British Airways check-in worker who was banned from wearing a small cross on a chain. This modest manifestation of her faith was as important to her as a turban or hijab to other workers. Yet the airline accommodated these other items without, perhaps, embracing the underlying values that would have protected Ms Eweida and anyone else from the blundering assertion that “rules is rules is rules”.
After a public outcry that included secular, religious and political voices from across the spectrum, the airline modified its uniform policy. But not before Ms Eweida had been off work for months without pay, and crucially, without accepting the ethical and legal principle that would protect her and others of all faiths and none in the future. Worse still, BA instructed an international law firm strenuously to resist her claim of religious discrimination.
What followed was an extremely disappointing employment appeal tribunal that found no discrimination, because “Christians generally” do not consider wearing a cross as a religious “requirement”. This fundamentally misunderstands the idea of individual rights and freedoms, which do not depend on how many people agree with your conscience or speech. It also opens up secular courts to lengthy arguments as to what is a theological necessity. Making windows into men’s souls is as pointlessly complex as it is dangerous.
Predictably, this case and others like it, have provided fuel for the fire of those wanting to portray tolerance and the laws of non-discrimination as inherently anti-Christian, or as skewed in favour of some communities and not others. Public confidence as well as individual justice demands that liberal values be applied with an even hand.
Advertisement
It seems to me that any society has three choices in dealing with this small question of religion.
The first is to elevate an approved faith to the point of dominant status over all other belief systems. It is formally woven into the legal, political and social system, every sphere of public life and as much of private life as possible. An extreme example might be Afghanistan under the Taleban; a more moderate one, Britain at earlier and less enlightened times in its history.
The second option is, in many ways, equal and opposite. It is based on the view that faith is all dangerous, divisive mumbo-jumbo. No good can come of it so, if it cannot be eradicated altogether, it must be chased from the public sphere, confined to a place of worship or the home, upstairs under the bed with the pornography. An extreme example would be Stalin’s Russia; a more moderate one, the French Republic.
You will have guessed that I favour a third approach that is based on human rights and resonates well with a society such as Britain’s. Here the struggle for religious freedom has been strongly connected with the struggle for democracy itself.
I believe that human beings are creatures of both faith and logic, emotion and reason and it is as well that the law reflects this. It may be true that religion has caused much war and prejudice but it has also inspired much art, music and compassion. And it is also true that scientists and engineers have produced some of the greatest advances in human history, but also some of the stuff of nightmares.
Advertisement
If we really believe in freedom of thought, conscience and religion, this must include the right to the faith or belief of one’s choice, the right to no faith and to be a heretic. Proportionate limits on this precious liberty don’t arise because a minority causes irritation or even offence. We interfere when someone is harming others, or in the workplace when, for instance, their faith or clothing prevents them doing their job.
The public seem to agree. A Liberty-ComRes poll published today shows that 86 per cent of British Christians polled disagreed with BA’s treatment of Ms Eweida and 80 per cent agreed that her case sets a dangerous precedent. Even more encouragingly, 96 per cent think that everybody should have freedom of thought, conscience and religion as long as they do not harm others; 85 per cent say that regardless of your faith, the law should protect the right to wear its symbols as long as they do not harm others. The supposed libertarians at UKIP can put that in their populist pipe and smoke it.
If Nadia Eweida were a surgeon refusing to remove her cross in theatre, a reasonable employer would intervene to prevent jewellery dangling over the patients. Similarly, there are a number of medical and security contexts where a woman in a burka might be asked to unveil in a respectful and discreet manner.
But that is very different from BA stubbornly defending past mistakes or UKIP attempting to steal clothes and voters from the BNP.
Shami Chakrabarti is director of Liberty