The family are close friends.

Court Prohibits School from Punishing American Indian Student for His 
Long Braids
http://www.aclutx.org/article.php?aid=672

  -Shay

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Shay <sha### [at] nonenone> wrote:
> The family are close friends.
>
> Court Prohibits School from Punishing American Indian Student for His
> Long Braids
> http://www.aclutx.org/article.php?aid=672
>
>   -Shay

A happy ending to a sad story. (It always seems to take some unfortunate person
or persons, who have been denied rights and freedoms, or worse, to bring such
things to a head and force a change. It's a shame that in most cases, change
can't be effected otherwise.)

Ken W.

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Kenneth <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> (It always seems to take some unfortunate person
> or persons, who have been denied rights and freedoms, or worse, to bring such
> things to a head and force a change. It's a shame that in most cases, change
> can't be effected otherwise.)

  On the other hand, it's a fine line between freedom of religious
expression and, sometimes, safety regulations.

  For example, if in some kind of food preparation establishment there's
a rule, related to food hygiene and safety, that all workers handling the
food must not wear long-sleeved shirts (because long sleeves may touch
the food products, increasing risk of contamination), and someone has the
religious conviction that he must wear long-sleeved shirts (I suppose I
don't have to mention such religion by name), which one in this case should
be imposed, the freedom of religious expression, or the safety rule?

  Now guess if this has been a real case, and guess what the court of
law (in a western European country) ruled.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 25-Jan-09 14:08, Warp wrote:
> Kenneth <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
>> (It always seems to take some unfortunate person
>> or persons, who have been denied rights and freedoms, or worse, to bring such
>> things to a head and force a change. It's a shame that in most cases, change
>> can't be effected otherwise.)
> 
>   On the other hand, it's a fine line between freedom of religious
> expression and, sometimes, safety regulations.
> 
>   For example, if in some kind of food preparation establishment there's
> a rule, related to food hygiene and safety, that all workers handling the
> food must not wear long-sleeved shirts (because long sleeves may touch
> the food products, increasing risk of contamination), and someone has the
> religious conviction that he must wear long-sleeved shirts (I suppose I
> don't have to mention such religion by name), which one in this case should
> be imposed, the freedom of religious expression, or the safety rule?
> 
>   Now guess if this has been a real case, and guess what the court of
> law (in a western European country) ruled.
> 
I would hope that the court ruled that if your religion prohibits you to 
work at some place you seek another job. Otherwise any jew or muslim 
could apply for a job in a pig farm and force the company to change over 
to sheep. I am not entirely sure however if common sense prevailed in 
this case.

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On 25-Jan-09 3:02, Shay wrote:
> The family are close friends.
> 
> Court Prohibits School from Punishing American Indian Student for His 
> Long Braids
> http://www.aclutx.org/article.php?aid=672

I do think that in this case the court did the right thing. But, this 
being p.o-t, I think I am allowed to make some remarks.
- I am not at all surprised by: After months of procedural maneuvers 
that the court viewed as "designed to make Plaintiffs' abandon their 
[exemption] request, or leave the district, rather than to seriously 

- There is a distinction between culture and faith. I think that this is 
more culture than faith (although not having studied this particular 
religion it is hard for me to judge). Even so, in this case culture 
should prevail over arbitrary school rules. I have probably written 
about this before, but for me this is a very fundamental discussion. Too 
often cultural expressions (head scarfs, female genital mutilation) are 
claimed to be religious in order to have them accepted in a host 
culture. We even had a religious 'leader' who claimed that he as a 
muslim was not allowed to shake hands with females and 'therefore' 
refused the hand of a minister. As long as we don't make the distinction 
between culture and religion anybody can make such things up to annoy 
others and get away with it because the others are not allowed to 
discriminate against a 'religion'.

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"andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:497### [at] hotmailcom...

> - There is a distinction between culture and faith. I think that this is
> more culture than faith (although not having studied this particular
> religion it is hard for me to judge). Even so, in this case culture
> should prevail over arbitrary school rules. I have probably written
> about this before, but for me this is a very fundamental discussion. Too
> often cultural expressions (head scarfs, female genital mutilation) are
> claimed to be religious in order to have them accepted in a host
> culture. We even had a religious 'leader' who claimed that he as a
> muslim was not allowed to shake hands with females and 'therefore'
> refused the hand of a minister. As long as we don't make the distinction
> between culture and religion anybody can make such things up to annoy
> others and get away with it because the others are not allowed to
> discriminate against a 'religion'.

You have some points about "abuse" of religious freedom, but I don't think
it's very productive for courts to go into long winded arguments of what's
culture and what's religion, and how old the religions/customs might be. And
fundamentally, I agree with your claim of distinction between faith and
culture. Much (in fact, all) of the practices of Abrahamic religions are
based on culture. Ultimately, there's no such thing as religion distinct
from culture - at least from this atheist's perspective - since all
religions are invented by men, and culture is just that - whatever lifestyle
man invents. So instead of wasting time and money trying to sort all the
silliness, I say that the principle be adopted where so long as there are no
adverse effects (health, safety... etc), let them wear what they want, and
be consistent/evenhanded. Braids, long, free flowing hair is a no-no in a
machine shop, food preparation.... etc, but it's hard to justfiy it as a
risk at a school.

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Warp wrote:
> which one in this case should
> be imposed, the freedom of religious expression, or the safety rule?

Unfortunately, in the USA, you don't really have a whole lot of choice about 
going to school or which one you go to. Those who feel they must wear long 
sleeves should get a job where short sleeves aren't a requirement. The child 
in this case didn't have that choice.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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andrel wrote:
> Otherwise any jew or muslim 
> could apply for a job in a pig farm and force the company to change over 
> to sheep. 

My favorite was the guy hired to do microbiology research who complained 
when they fired him for refusing to read/write/review papers that mentioned 
evolution.   At least in that case he stayed fired.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:08:25 -0500, Warp wrote:

>   For example, if in some kind of food preparation establishment there's
> a rule, related to food hygiene and safety, that all workers handling
> the food must not wear long-sleeved shirts (because long sleeves may
> touch the food products, increasing risk of contamination), and someone
> has the religious conviction that he must wear long-sleeved shirts (I
> suppose I don't have to mention such religion by name), which one in
> this case should be imposed, the freedom of religious expression, or the
> safety rule?

That's easy.  If the safety rules conflict with one's religious rules, 
then there are two options:

1.  You go by the food safety rules
2.  You find a different job

This is like someone working to become a pharmacist and then deciding 
they don't want to dispense legally prescribed medications.  The 
pharmacist's job isn't to impose their moral beliefs on their customers.  
Their job is to fill legally prescribed medications.

If they want to "act on their conscience", then they shouldn't have put 
themselves into a job where that conflict would exist.

Jim

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On 25-Jan-09 16:54, somebody wrote:
> "andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:497### [at] hotmailcom...
> 
>> - There is a distinction between culture and faith. I think that this is
>> more culture than faith (although not having studied this particular
>> religion it is hard for me to judge). Even so, in this case culture
>> should prevail over arbitrary school rules. I have probably written
>> about this before, but for me this is a very fundamental discussion. Too
>> often cultural expressions (head scarfs, female genital mutilation) are
>> claimed to be religious in order to have them accepted in a host
>> culture. We even had a religious 'leader' who claimed that he as a
>> muslim was not allowed to shake hands with females and 'therefore'
>> refused the hand of a minister. As long as we don't make the distinction
>> between culture and religion anybody can make such things up to annoy
>> others and get away with it because the others are not allowed to
>> discriminate against a 'religion'.
> 
> You have some points about "abuse" of religious freedom, but I don't think
> it's very productive for courts to go into long winded arguments of what's
> culture and what's religion, and how old the religions/customs might be. And
> fundamentally, I agree with your claim of distinction between faith and
> culture. Much (in fact, all) of the practices of Abrahamic religions are
> based on culture. Ultimately, there's no such thing as religion distinct
> from culture - at least from this atheist's perspective - since all
> religions are invented by men, and culture is just that - whatever lifestyle
> man invents. So instead of wasting time and money trying to sort all the
> silliness, I say that the principle be adopted where so long as there are no
> adverse effects (health, safety... etc), let them wear what they want, and
> be consistent/evenhanded. Braids, long, free flowing hair is a no-no in a
> machine shop, food preparation.... etc, but it's hard to justfiy it as a
> risk at a school.

I disagree. The refusal of jews and muslims to eat pork or obeying 
Ramadan or sabbath is firmly established in the books. Your point that 
the books were written by humans may be true but is irrelevant. For the 
believers it is *provably* part of their religion.
OTOH you have things like women to have to wear hats on sunday when 
going to church as is the practice in some circles in the Netherlands. 
This has no basis in the script but rests on an interpretation of (IIRC) 
Timothy 2:9-10 (no don't ask me how they do that). The common cultural 
idea that women have to wear headscarfs or worse also rests on such an 
interpretation of similar words by Mohamed.
NB I don't have a recipe to distinguish culture from religion.

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