Here are two stories from the UK that help illustrate the increasing muddle in which the country finds itself when it comes to the treatment of different religious ideologies within its society:

First, we have this, from the Daily Telegraph:

A devout Catholic schoolgirl has been banned from wearing a crucifix in class on health and safety grounds. Samantha Devine, a 13-year-old pupil at the Robert Napier School in Gillingham, Kent, yesterday vowed to keep wearing the tiny cross, even if it meant being expelled.

Those “health and safety” grounds sound fairly silly to me, but, ultimately, if the school wishes to insist that Samantha removes the symbol (she would, incidentally, be allowed to wear a lapel badge with the same insignia), that is its prerogative as a school, and, no, it wouldn’t detract from freedom of religion.

But then we go on to read these comments from Samantha:

Other religions are allowed to show their beliefs by wearing bracelets or turbans, so why can I not wear a cross to show my devotion to God?

She makes a fair point. In a non-parochial school, the answer, of course, should be to allow “reasonable” (it is a school after all) displays of religious (or other ideological) affiliation, or none.

Meanwhile, the Pub Philosopher reports on the debate in the pages of the British Medical Journal between Professor Aziz Sheikh of Edinburgh University and Professor Aneez Esmail of Manchester University. Basically, Professor Sheikh wants Britain’s National Health Service to cater more specifically to the needs of one ideology, Islam. (You can follow the link through to his article on the Philosopher’s site). Professor Esmail, thankfully, disagrees:

[In] planning our services we should encourage respect and tolerance without having to subscribe to the notion of having special services for defined groups of people. What is special about Muslims or Hindus or Jews or Christians that they need to have special services? Going down the path of providing special services for defined groups risks stigmatisation andstereotyping

Indeed it does. It also risks entrenching the sectarian divisions that are increasing in Britain still further.

Professor Esmail also says that he despairs “at the way many South Asian doctors have begun to organise themselves along religious lines (including along caste lines).”

He’s not the only one to despair.