IT IS a problem that arises in every liberal democracy that upholds liberty of belief (and hence, the freedom of religious bodies to manage their own affairs) while also aiming to defend citizens, including job-seekers, from unfair discrimination. As part of their entitlement to run their own show, faith groups often claim some exemption from equality laws when they are recruiting people.
To take an extreme case, it would run counter to common sense if a church were judicially obliged to appoint a militant atheist as a priest, even if that candidate was well qualified on paper. But how generous should those exceptions be?
In recent years some decisions by the American Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have been pretty kind, as many people would see things, to religious employers. In 2012 a teacher laid off from a school linked to a Lutheran church in Michigan lost her unfair dismissal case on the grounds that she was technically a minister and her bosses were therefore exempt from equality laws....Continue reading
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