The SFU Human Rights Office recently sent out an email message dedicated to the accommodation of religious “holy days”. The contents are based on British Columbia’s Human Rights Act, which, much like the Charter of Rights, embeds religious accommodation in the legislative and social framework.
The message specifies that student and staff requests for days off in order to observe holy days as prescribed by their religion must be accommodated without penalty unless it presents undue hardship. This would apply for example if a holy day conflicts with an exam, where a student will not lose grades due to it. The message goes on to say that “it is difficult to imagine, in a University of this size and scope, the point at which we would be justified in saying that undue hardship had been reached”. Verifying whether a claimant actually belongs to the religion they claim is discouraged, and a rule of thumb for acceptable religions is provided as those listed in the interfaith calendar, which the same office makes available. Even more onerous requests are accepted, such as “Orthodox Jews and Seventh Day Adventists, [who] practice their religious faith by worshipping from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday”, or “Muslims who fast during Ramadan”.
I was curious how much this policy covered, so I promptly replied with a question:
Hi,
I am a pastafarian and part of the requirement for my religion is the observance of every holy day of every other religion, in addition to our own. Will this need be accommodated?
Thanks!
The answer – not surprisingly – was a ‘no’ delivered rather humorously. Since everyone knows about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I wanted to figure out whether the denial was because of the “unduly harsh” demands of FSMism, or whether it was not being taken seriously. Two exchanges later, it was admitted that “ridiculous” requests are not entertained.
One can’t help but wonder what the criteria is for determining whether a request is “ridiculous” or not, seeing as mainstream religions have just as much (or rather, little) evidence as FSMism or IPUism. The only real difference is that people claim to actually believe in the former. The SFU Human Rights Office itself is unclear on this point, claiming that they recognize something if you actually believe in it and “experts” also recognize it, while at the same time not recognizing fringe groups like the teapot cult in Malaysia which are obviously religions and widely recognized as such.
In any other context such behaviour would be considered discrimination on the basis of belief, but in a religious context the arbitrary and blatantly discriminatory policy of granting privileges based on belief, which one would not otherwise be entitled to, is actually mandated by the constitution itself, in direct contradiction to the principles of equality and fairness underlying the document. The BC Human Rights Act isn’t much different.
Don’t hold any irrational beliefs? Sorry, you don’t get any days off. Earth day isn’t part of a religion after all, despite the fact that it benefits humanity multitudes more than Christmas. Even days of cultural significance are brushed aside, the Human Rights Office’s message draws a clear distinction on this: Although it’s nice to grant days off for cultural reasons, it’s not required as for religious reasons.
How about the ripe potential for abuse? A student who, two weeks beforehand, asks to take an exam late because there’s a party the night before can only dream of having the request granted, yet the same request would be easily granted – even compelled to be granted – if the student could find a holy day of any religion which happens to coincide with the date of the exam. Seeing as efforts at verification are actually discouraged, the declaration of religious belief acts as a get out of exam free card, whether or not one actually adheres to the religion.
This policy also encourages the pronouncement of irrationality by associating it with social benefits. The former reason, that there is a party the night before, while not a responsible one, is a rational, thought out reason for why the student would not want to take an exam. The latter, however, is just an assertion that some book which was written by multiple authors – none of whom attempting to record factually, nor possess an understanding of the natural world surpassing today’s elementary kids – over hundreds of years, then translated and transcribe hundreds of times over thousands of years, declares that something must be done, or not done, on a certain day.
Such is the hypocrisy of religious rights embedded in law. The freedoms of thought, opinion, and belief are completely adequate in protecting those holding religious beliefs from discrimination, just as they are completely adequate in protecting everyone else from discrimination based on belief. The enshrinement of religious “freedom” grants additional rights which in fact result in inequality and inequity. I stand by the fundamental principles of freedom and equality expressed by numerous human rights documents around the world, and I stand by those principles applied rationally, logically, and universally without exception. I hope you do too.