Why Religion and the Law should never mix. (Politics, Philosophy)

I understand that this topic could be deemed as controversial by some; but it is a post I have been meaning to put up for a while. 

I assure you I have nothing against specific religions, but only on their effect on the law.

Let me start by explaining what I feel discrimination is (you will have to bear with me for a moment),

Discrimination is where you treat one group of a society different to another group in a society based only upon a factor which cannot be changed by the group in question.

In this post I will make the assumption that religion is a factor which cannot be changed by people, (although it obviously can, but the belief is so strong that it must be assumed that they cannot).

The question I would pose is how would we go about treating all religions equally in society?

How would we not discriminate against any specific religion?

If laws are passed in a country which are dependent on whether you are part of a religion or not, and they give you rights which any other part of society would not have had in the same situation, I would call it discrimination.

Well it’s all very well saying that it’s discrimination, but what can we do to stop this discrimination?

Well we can’t start treating religions differently to one another in the law, so why don’t we discard religion within the law?

After all if there is no religion in place within the law then all the religions will be treated equally.

At this point I would expect somebody to say “Hey, what about Atheism? If there’s no religion in the Law then that will favour the religion of Atheism over others?”

Unfortunately this shows a gross misunderstanding of the word atheism. Atheism means your non-religious. It is the lack of religion and that means it is not one in itself. Actually without the presence of religion, being an atheist means absolutely nothing at all.

Here’s a metaphor to explain –

For a photo-shoot you have 5 lighting colours to choose from. Tom wants to use the Blue filter, Barry wants to use the Red filter, Fred wants Orange, Jess wants Green and Hannah wants Yellow. How do you make sure that you treat all the people equally?

The only way is to turn out the light.

So to continue my metaphor to stop discrimination in this country due to laws with religious clauses is to “turn out the lights”. Then EVERYONE will be treated the same and EQUALITY will be achieved.

This is why Religion and the Law should never mix.

Here are some examples;

I saw on the television a few months ago the story of a woman who wore a cross to work for many years round her neck and she worked with heavy machinery. Due to health and safety grounds she was told that she could not wear the necklace anymore as it may get stuck in the machine.

She claimed she needed to wear the cross on religious grounds; and I believe eventually was allowed to.

Now, this seems harmless enough, but where does that leave the rest of the people in her workplace? What If they really wanted to wear a picture of their wife/husband around their neck? How about a special ring?

How about ID cards? If you say that it’s on religious grounds you can cover up your face as much as you like, with what you like. Does the rest of the population get that privilege? No? Why not? I guess probably because an identification card is used to identify you, and if you cannot be identified then it renders the identity card completely useless?

I look forward to everyone’s inevitable comments.