Don’t proselytise at work, a court rules

[rug]

Apr 8th 2016, 14:47
BY ERASMUS

AS A colleague recently recalled, it has become accepted in many countries that employers should give their workers a degree of freedom to display their religious affiliation at work. In one landmark case, a British Airways employee was vindicated by the European Court of Human Rights in her battle to assert the right to wear a small cross along with her uniform. An American clothing chain was told that it must allow its saleswomen to wear the Muslim hijab. Even in secular France, bosses often take a pragmatic view of their employees’ religious needs. In factories, this can mean allowing Muslim workers time and space to pray. And to take a very different example, the Qatari owners of Paris Saint Germain football team don’t seem to mind if their Brazilian players make exuberant displays of their Christian allegiance.

But there is another side to that coin. Precisely because work-places are multi-faith arenas where people aren’t expected to leave their religious affiliations behind, employment disputes caused by inter-religious exchanges (from debates to arguments to banter or worse) at work are likely to grow more and more contentious.

In a closely-watched case, a British National Health Service employee this week lost her appeal against being disciplined for encouraging a junior colleague to switch from Islam to Christianity. Victoria Wasteney (pictured) held a senior position in occupational therapy at a mental health facility in east London. As she tells the story, she began to have friendly conversations about matters of faith with a colleague of lower rank who was Muslim. Miss Wasteney, a member of the evangelical Christian Revival Church, gave her colleague a book about a Muslim woman who became Christian; gave her DVDs on a similar theme; and encouraged her colleague to attend her church. In one incident, Miss Wasteney had prayed and laid hands on her colleague, who had recently returned from surgery.

Miss Wasteney insisted that all these exchanges were voluntary and consensual, and that her own religious freedom was being violated when she was disciplined with a written warning and a nine-month suspension. But an employment tribunal found, and this week’s verdict reaffirmed, that she had gone beyond voluntary discussion and subjected her subordinate to “unwanted and unwelcome” attention.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2016/04/religion-and-work

[pangaia]

1. I feel proselytising is wrong, period.

[struggle4progress]

2. Do you think it's wrong to knock doors for political candidates

or to leaflet on environmental issues?

[pangaia]

5. No.

[rug]

3. There's a huge difference between stating one's position and proselytizing.

Especially when the discussin is unwanted.

[pangaia]

4. Agreed.

[jonno99]

8. I agree as as well. However, I'm always leery with the govt. getting involved

in what "speech" is allowed.

My concern with situations like the OP is - who decides when "proselytizing" is taking place? If two co-workers are discussing religion over lunch and a third party over-hearing the discussion is offended, can they now file a grievance because of "second-hand proselytizing"?

IMHO, these kind of actions leads to more PC "safe space" thinking. No thanks.

[Silent3]

6. Even as an atheist, I've never gotten this antagonism against proselytizing.

There, are, of course, obnoxious forms of proselytizing. It's annoying to have people bugging you ringing your doorbell, for instance, but even then, I wouldn't call that wrong. I'd only call proselytizing wrong if it's aggressive or forcible.

If someone thinks they've got this great idea about the meaning of life, how best to life your life, even if the rest of us think the idea is crazy or stupid, doesn't it make sense they'd want to tell other people? Wouldn't freedom of expression be pretty meaningless if something this important to a person was precisely the thing you expected them to shut up and be quiet about?

I do understand to an extent the attitude that "it's no one else's business what I believe", but how would you make any decision at all about what to believe in a total vacuum where you don't hear anyone else's ideas? And if not a total vacuum, what makes religion an invitation-only topic, where people are supposed to be quiet about their views on the subject until another person explicitly requests that they talk about it?

[pangaia]

7. You raise very good points and ask good questions.

And I can not say that I can present a good argument to the contrary.

It is just my own feeling about it. HH the Dalai Lama has even spoken of it, as I remember, not that that is the final answer, of course.

I personally do not feel any 'antagonism' toward people who do proselytize - and by that term I refer to people who make an explicit effort to....present, uninvited, their beliefs to someone with the express purpose of changing their beliefs, spiritual practices, etc.

If a person, "spiritual group," religion, wishes to, for example, rent a hall, give talks, or present their ideas and invite the public, I think that is fine.

Again, that's about the best I can do. perhaps it is just my "instinct," a sense I have that I can not explain....yet.