Because skin color can’t be changed, while clothing can.
Discrimination laws generally cover ‘immutable physical characteristics’ – race, gender*, skin color, sexuality, blindness, etc. And courts give what they call ‘strict scrutiny’ in such cases. Religion is the odd one out here – it’s easily changeable, but is still protected by discrimination laws.
*Well, given todays medical technology, gender can be changed. And skin color, somewhat. And in some cases, blindness, deafness, etc. But those are rare, complicated, & expensive procedures – not something ordinary.
As you pointed out, they aren’t all immutable physical characteristics. But my question remains: are protected classes not equally protected? I really can’t see how we can make such a distinction without effectively arguing that discrimination is fine against the religious (or, alternatively, non-religious). It is not just a slippery slope; it is slipping down the slope.
Actually, let me add to that. Although it is not an immutable characteristic, the beliefs of religion and irreligiousness form a characteristic that society should under no conditions demand a citizen to change to engage in society as fully as practical — precisely like all the other protected classes.
Not really. In the US (at least at the federal level) discrimination based on race is held to “strict scrutiny” while discrimination based on sex is only held to “intermediate scrutiny”. I’m not sure which standard religious belief is held to.
This really galls me. Store manager and prospective employee strike a deal and the employee complies for four months until she is fired by the “District Manager” who over rules the Store Manager. This employee has devoted 4 months of her life to this company. I see she’s wearing Abercrombie navy blue. She held her end of the bargain.
Don’t these corporate assholes have any sense of honor and respect towards their employees? They compromised the word of the Store Manager as well shitting on their Stockroom worker.
But then, following the same chain of thought, there are many Muslim women who do not wear head scarves… which would seem to argue for it not being a requirement of the religion wouldn’t it? (Which would then leave it outside of protection?)
We’ve discussed that issue before. The belief merely needs to be sincere, not universal or even mainstream — indeed, Islam “the religion” covers people with a wide range of beliefs, from takfiris to universalists, from people who wear burkas and niqabs to people who wear immodest clothing. So yes, wearing a hijab is a requirement for many Muslims; it need not be universal. To use an example from Christianity, lots of Protestants use grape juice for Eucharist (or what they call Communion); but Catholics (among others) do not consider the Eucharist to be valid unless it uses real, alcoholic wine. Yet seventeen-year-olds in the USA can take wine at Eucharist, should they so desire, and it’s fairly obvious that they are merely doing as their religion requires. For that matter, during Prohibition, priests were permitted to produce wine for Eucharist.
Actually, here’s an even better example. Some atheists and agnostics would be very upset to be forced to say the “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance or to take an oath on the Bible. Others would say, “I don’t think it means anything, so what’s the harm in saying/doing it?” Yet the first group would argue — indeed, has argued successfully in court case after court case — that such things are violations of their freedom of conscience.
Because some Jews don’t follow kosher rules does that make it not part of the religion? There are lots of aspects of religions that aren’t followed by all adherents.
Presumably it has to be fairly mainstream within the religion… (not that I’d ever argue women’s headwear wasn’t mainstream in Islam – it’s pretty common albeit not universal)… but simply “sincere” surely can’t be sufficient? (Usual caveats: not lawyer, not American…) That would seem to open up the area to pretty much any claim a person cared to attempt.
However I was more trying to reply to your comment that:
If, and I have no idea if it’s germane in this case, a Muslim woman did wear a tank top and shorts but insisted that she had to wear a hijab “for modesty” then would the claim be automatically valid?
But kosher is pretty mainstream (to re-use **straight man’s ** term) within Judaism, just as I’d never claim that my Muslim ex-flatmate’s consumption of bacon and red wine invalidated the general prohibition of his religion.
But, hypothetically, if I self-identified as Jewish, but happily ate bacon-cheeseburgers and then told my employer I couldn’t possibly work on the Sabbath should I expect that my claim would be automatically protected? (Not rhetorical – I have no idea, though I’d be interested to know).
Dude, hijab wearing is far more common among Muslim women than keeping kosher is amongst Jews.
You just destroyed your own argument.
The answer is that it would depend on whether or not your employer could “reasonably accommodate” such a request.
If he or she could then yes, they’d have to.
Many, if not most religious people are somewhat inconsistent in the practice of their faiths.
For example lots of devout Christians cheat on their spouses and several of the 9/11 hijackers went to a strip club before they went on their martyrdom operation. Muhammad Atta even gulped down several Vodkas at the bar before getting on a plane and turning himself into a human bomb and drinking the Vodkas didn’t mean that he wasn’t utterly certain that God would send him to paradise to spend an eternity being serviced by virgins after he turned himself into a Martyr.
And most what I know about the sincerity issue is from the other threads on this stuff on the Dope. The truly cases I’ve heard about in the news usually are prisoners trying to get special accommodations through claiming whatever religion they made up. Suffice it to say, yes, the court actually bothers to consider whether their singular beliefs are sincere; they don’t just toss them out. Beyond that, no, it does not need to be “fairly mainstream”. There’s no “mainstream atheist”, yet they get accommodations; JW’s are so far from mainstream Christianity that Christians don’t always think JW’s are Christians, but they’ve usually been at the forefront of accommodation. For that matter, Anabaptists aren’t at all mainstream, but they were one of the big pushers of conscientious objection.
The kosher = mainstream comment was a response to the suggestion that beliefs / practices need not be universal to be protected. (And I was saying that although not universal kosher is still very common).
I agree, hijab wearing is very common among Muslim women – and some not wearing it doesn’t invalidate its “mainstream-ness”.
As a bit on an aside, one of the reasons I was interested in this thread was that niqab wearing (not hijab) has been in the NZ news a bit recently – a couple of instances of women being refused service (on a bus) because the driver wasn’t keen on (or was phobic about) masks. The drivers were criticized / reprimanded (and rightly so) but it’s opened up some interesting (and divisive) discussions.
I find my general feeling coming down on the joint sides of personal freedom and consistency of laws & policies – so wear a mask for religious reasons (or even just because you want to), but if a bank (for instance) has a policy of disallowing motorcycle helmets, balaclavas, etc on its premises then this also applies to niqab and halloween masks. If a law states that the photo ID for a driver’s licence is bare-faced then it’s the same for all drivers.
And in the referenced story the employer seemed to have no problems initially but then did – and is probably rightly screwed.
On the other hand, if they had (equally and universally) enforced a “no hats or headwear” rule on all their staff, then I wouldn’t have a problem with that (which may of course not have anything to do with US law).
And I guess I find that hypocrisy outweighs sincerity – I’m not arguing that this is the legal position (although I think perhaps it should be one) – if ones faith is only a faith when it serves ones pleasure then I have trouble seeing why anyone should accomodate it, reasonably or otherwise.
