The British ‘Commission for Racial Equality’ is a generally worthless organization with, regrettably, considerable powers at its disposal. Its ‘advice’ has to be taken seriously, and, judging by this Daily Telegraph account of its latest effort, that’s a shame. One proposal in particular has drawn criticism: employers should be compelled to provide “prayer rooms” for their employees. The Telegraph quotes one Muslim who thinks this is all quite absurd.
“Mohammed Hassan, the diversity manager [I know, I know] of the Institute of Directors, said the guidance on prayer rooms, and other elements of the new rules, would place an unnecessary burden on smaller businesses. “I have been employed by small companies for most of my working life. As a practising Muslim I have simply shut my office door for a few minutes on a Friday and asked for telephone calls to be withheld so that I can pray. If I have been late back from lunch because of prayers, employers have been understanding and that’s how it should be – a private arrangement. “Things like praying time or rooms or holidays should be for employers and employees to decide and not be dictated from above.”
He’s right.
Of course, quite why religious observance should be favored in this way is beyond me. If the devout are to have ‘prayer rooms’ secular sorts such as myself should insist on a skeptics’ suite where we will be free to contemplate the horrors of the Inquisition, Sharia ‘law’, New Age nonsense, the witlessness of Wicca, Atheist arrogance and the success of Seventh Heaven.