A cross to bear

Published on 16/07/2012 00:00

You report, (12 July) that David Cameron intends to change the law to make it clear people 
can wear religious symbols at work.

However, the law on this is already perfectly clear that people can, subject to a right for employers to ask their staff to comply with uniform policies or health and safety regulations.

Up and down the country there are millions of people wearing crosses in the workplace with no problem whatsoever.

However, there are a few fundamentalists, not always Christian ones, who consider religious freedom to mean that they can do whatever they like, and that 
society’s rules and regulations are for other people to follow, not them.

It is interesting how the selective reporting of the Eweida case has seen it become so deeply entrenched in our collective consciousness.

It has been put there by systematic misrepresentation on the part of some sections of the media and by evangelical activists who are seeking special privileges for Christians in the workplace. In the process, quite a few believers seem to have temporarily suspended their belief in the 9th Commandment.

ALISTAIR MCBAY 
National Secular Society

Atholl Crescent

Edinburgh