Compare and contrast: beliefs

I find it interesting to take Mr. Wadsworth's approach to headline rewriting sometimes: Government lawyers also told the Strasbourg court that wearing a hijab is not a "generally recognised" act of Muslim worship and is not required by the Qu'ran:

Ms Al-Sahab told The Daily Telegraph that she felt "insulted" by the argument that Muslims who are told by their employer that they cannot wear a hijab at work can always find another job.

Yeah, not too believable, is it? I'm almost with the employers on this one - if a piece of religious garb (e.g. a cross, hijab, yarmulke) is not essential to the religion and poses a risk in the workplace such as to infection control, personal safety in an environment of rotating machinery etc. then sure, it's only sensible to require the person to keep it away from work.

Nevertheless, one has a sneaking suspicion that this particular area is a free-for-all in the application of arbitrary HR policies with ex-post-facto justifications. I'm particularly at the decision against former civil registrar Lillian Ladele:

Registrar Lillian Ladele was disciplined after she refused to conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies in north London.

This seems to be a clear case of shifting the goalposts of a job during employment. When Ms. Ladele was hired, same-sex civil partnerships were not an issue. Now they are. One feels that no matter what you think about Ms. Ladele's beliefs, retroactively forcing her out of a job when reasonable accommodation could have been made for her as the job changed is not entirely cricket.