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Religious discrimination is valuing or treating a person or group differently because of what they do or do not believe. While some authorities nowadays tend to stress that religion is something personal, others still practice religious discrimination. Many countries have one formal state religion. Practitioners of faiths other than the formal state religion sometimes face discriminatory rules and practices. The US state department yearly publishes an International Religious Freedom report. It includes individual country chapters on the status of religious freedom and incidents of religious discrimination worldwide. Charges of religious discrimination have been applied to governmental, social, and educational policies. Image File history File links Gnome-globe. ... Nations with state religions:  Buddhism  Islam  Shia Islam  Sunni Islam  Orthodox Christianity  Protestantism  Roman Catholic Church A state religion (also called an official religion, established church or state church) is a religious body or creed officially endorsed by the state. ... The United States Department of State, often referred to as the State Department, is the Cabinet-level foreign affairs agency of the United States government, equivalent to foreign ministries in other countries. ... Religious is a term with both a technical definition and folk use. ...

Examples

• The Eagle Feather Law, which governs the possession and religious use of eagle feathers, was officially written to protect then dwindling eagle populations while still protecting traditional Native American spiritual and religious customs, of which the use of eagles are central. The Eagle Feather Law later met charges of promoting racial and religious discrimination due to the law’s provision authorizing the possession of eagle feathers to members of only one ethnic group, Native Americans, and forbidding Native Americans from including non-Native Americans in indigenous customs involving eagle feathers—a common modern practice dating back to the early 1500s.

• Charges of religious and racial discrimination have also been found in the education system. In a recent example, the dormitory policies at Boston University and The University of South Dakota were charged with racial and religious discrimination when they forbade a university dormitory resident from smudging while praying. The policy at The University of South Dakota was later changed to permit students to pray while living in the university dorms.

• Religious organizations such as the Seventh Day Adventist Church make it clear in their university catalog that they have the right to discriminate on the basis of religion. They discriminate against non-Adventists in hiring practices, disciplinary action, and promotions. The Seventh Day Adventist Church has made many anti-Catholic statements attacking the Pope as being the Anti-Christ.

• Under pressure from the Roman Catholic church, the government of Quebec withheld the vote from women until the mid 1940s.

• During 1995-1998 Newfoundland had only Christian schools (four of them, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, and inter-denominational (Anglican, Salvation Army and United Church)). The right to organize publicly supported religious schools was only given to certain Christian denominations, thus tax money used to support a selected group of Christian denominations. The denominational schools could also refuse admission of a student or the hiring of a qualified teacher on purely religious grounds. Quebec has used two school systems, one Protestant and the other Roman Catholic, but it seems this system will be replaced with two secular school systems: one French and the other English.^[1]

• In Greece since the independence from the Muslim Ottomans rule in the 1800s, the Greek Orthodox church has been given privileged status and only the Greek Orthodox church, Roman Catholic, some Protestant churches, Judaism and Islam are recognized religions. The Muslim minority alleges that Greece persistently and systematically discriminates against Muslims.^[2][3]

• According to a Human Rights Practices report by the U.S. State Department on Mexico note that "some local officials infringe on religious freedom, especially in the south". There is conflict between Catholic/Mayan syncretists and Protestant evangelicals in the Chiapas region. ^[4][5][6]

• In some U.S. jurisdictions legal restrictions exist which require a religious test as a qualification for holding public office, for instance in Texas an official may be "excluded from holding office" if he/she does not "acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being." (i.e. God) ^[7] thus atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, most Satanists, some Unitarian Universalists and New Age followers, who do not believe in a supreme being would be excluded from public office.

• In 2004, a case involving five Ohio prison inmates (two followers of Asatru, a minister of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, a Wiccan witch and a Satanist) protesting denial of access to ceremonial items and opportunities for group worship was brought before the Supreme Court.^[8] The Boston Globe reports on the 2005 decision of Cutter v. Wilkinson^[9] in favour of the claimants as a notable case. Among the denied objects was instructions for runic writing requested by an Asatruer.^[10] Inmates of the "Intensive Management Unit" at Washington State Penitentiary who are adherents of Asatru in 2001 were deprived of their Thor's Hammer medallions.^[11] In 2007, a federal judge confirmed that Asatru adherents in US prisons have the right to possess a Thor’s Hammer pendant. An inmate sued the Virginia Department of Corrections after he was denied it while members of other religions were allowed their medallions.^[12]

• Religious discrimination has also been documented as a practice in area of employment. The follwoing law suit by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against an investment bank, Merrill Lynch in US is an example.^[13]

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References

1. ^ The Constitution Since Patriation
2. ^ Turkish Minority Rights Violated in Greece
3. ^ The Turks of Western Thrace
4. ^ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
5. ^ [1]
6. ^ U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999: Mexico
7. ^ Texas Legislature Online
8. ^ NY Times: Justices Will Hear 2 Church-State Cases
9. ^ (03-9877) 544 U.S. 709 (2005)
10. ^ The Boston Globe: Court upholds law on prisoners' religious rights
11. ^ Walla Walla's Suppression of Religious Freedom^{[unreliable source?]}
12. ^ First Amendment Center: Va. inmate can challenge denial of Thor's Hammer
13. ^ http://eeoc0sues0merrilllynch.wordpress.com/

• Stokes, DaShanne. (In Press) Legalized Segregation and the Denial of Religious Freedom

• Stokes, DaShanne. (2001). "Sage, Sweetgrass, and the First Amendment." The Chronicle of Higher Education. May 18, 2001, sec. 2: B16.

See also

• Freedom of Religion
• Discrimination
• Civil rights
• Holocaust
• Religion
• List of anti-discrimination acts

Specific types: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen guarantees freedom of religion, as long as religious activities do not infringe on public order in ways detrimental to society. ... This article is about discrimination in the social science context. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation). ... This is a list of anti-discrimination acts (often called discrimination acts), which are laws designed to prevent discrimination. ...

• Anti-Catholicism
• Anti-Mormon
• Anti-Semitism
• Anti-Islam
• Anti-Hinduism

Anti-Catholicism is discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed at Catholics or the Catholic Church. ... An anti-Mormon political cartoon from the late nineteenth century. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ... Conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims made the persecution of both Muslims and non-Muslims a recurring phenomenon during the history of Islam. ... Anti-Hindu prejudice is a negative perception against the practice and practitioners of Hinduism. ...

External links

• Religious Freedom with Raptors
• Religious Discrimination Laws in the United States