Posted on 12/31/2012 10:29:14 AM PST by marshmallow
Judges have been accused of diluting the rights of Christians after a key judgment on whether they can refuse to work on Sundays.
A new ruling by a High Court judge - the first on the issue in nearly a decade - says that Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs.
The judgment - which upholds an earlier decision - means that individual Christians do not have any protection from being fired for not working on Sundays.
Campaigners said the decision puts Christians at a disadvantage to other religions and means the judiciary are deciding what the core beliefs of Christians can be, which they say is an interference in the right to practise religion.
The judgment was issued by Mr Justice Langstaff as he ruled on an appeal brought by a Christian woman who was sacked after she refused to work on Sundays at a care home.
Celestina Mba claimed the council she worked for pressured her to work on Sundays and threatened her with disciplinary measures - even though other workers were willing to take the shifts.
The 57 year-old, from Streatham Vale, south London, worships every Sunday at her Baptist church, where she is also part of the ministry team offering pastoral care and support to the congregation.
She said that when she took the position in 2007 providing respite care for children with severe learning difficulties at the Brightwell children’s home in Morden, south-west London managers initially agreed to accommodate the requirements of her faith.
But within a few months of starting the job, Miss Mba said managers began pressuring her to work on Sundays.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
There are some jobs you go into knowing you’re going to work on Sunday - a lot of healthcare, police, fire... and that kind of work you can do in a spirit of worship and be glad you’re following Jesus’s footsteps, healing and helping on the Sabbath.
Of course, if the employer makes provisions for Muslims and Jews not to work on their sabbaths and holy days, it should be done for Christians as well.
Any day can be a sabbath.
In the UK?
But let's say it happened in the US. This would actually be an example of the State staying out of it. By requiring businesses to let people have Sunday off they are advocating for a particular religious point of view.
Don't want to work on Sunday? Find an employer that will let you have that day off. That's the free market, right?
When I was in Germany earlier this year you would struggle to find many shops open on a Sunday. I also remember meeting tourists at Munich airport who thought they’d spend the day shopping in the city centre on a Sunday ... they came back disappointed at finding nothing open. In South Africa it’s the other extreme where everything is open all day every day of the year.
ah..good point!
Rules are made only for Christians — muslims will get their asses kissed.
Wrong state; that’s the UK
Exactly. It’s between employer and employee, and if employer demands what is against employee’s conscience to fulfilled, then they can go find another employer. I cannot for the life of me comprehend how posters on this thread call it “socialism” for the state to refuse to dictate terms between contracting parties. It must be they are so used to government dumping on religion—or at least unPC religion—that they interpret every little thing as such.
Now, the judge ruling that observing the Sabbath is not central to Christianity is plain ignorant, not to mention none of his business. But the solution isn’t to recognize the Sabbath as sacrosanct and team up with the employee to coerce better terms out of the employer. That’s the sorta thing that’s brought us to being unable to fire alchoholics or tell cashiers, for instance, not to wear belly shirts or giant hoops through their noses.
This is not the state dictating to religion. This is the state not dictating to employers on behalf if emoloyees’ religion. To my mind they have no business doing so, no how. You are not guaranteed the right to the free exercise of religion against private organizations or individuals with whom you contract. You carry that power yourself.
Should be? Maybe. But it’s none of the law’s business.
It is between the woman and those she works for, she could tell them to shove it but she is obviously a socialist just as much as the judge is.
Really, should it be the government’s job to legislate such work agreements between employers and employees?
Didn’t realise that there was another Capetonian here!
These same courts will bend over backards to placate Muzzies
There are other jobs, if your Christianity prevents you from working on Sunday (like it does me) get a different job. You can’t convince your employer otherwise? Tough. He doesn’t have to follow your religion
Rather interesting since if the discrimination involved race - the media would be all over it as they believe that private businesses do not have the right to discriminate along racial lines no matter what rights the business might have in selecting clients. To the others: I realize that Britain does not have a First Amendment per se but one would think that as a supposed free society that it purports to be that they would have a similar guarantee or protection.
Incidentally, I believe in the right of private persons and organizations to discriminate on the basis of race. Kinda like how the NAACP, The United Negros College Fund, La Raza, etc. no doubt do. Said right derives from freedom of association, which most relates to the right to peaceably assemble as far as constitutionally explicit rights are concerned.
Ultimately it is an inevitable outcome of private property rights. The civil rights act, insofar as it diminished private property rights and freedom of association, was shameful.
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