It's child abuse! Children AS YOUNG AS 4 to be 'educated' in atheism! What is the world coming to?

Yes, it's a long headline above, and reflects this blogger's pissed-off-ness with the likes of the Daily Hate (sorry, Mail – old habits die hard).

Its headline screams: CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS FOUR TO BE EDUCATED IN ATHEISM.

What is really happening is that humanism will be incorporated into religious education in primary schools in Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire (in the north of England), to accompany the religions that are there: Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. So kids will be told that certain religions exist, and this is what they say, and that there are people who don't do religion, and this is what they say.

Simple and, if you're going to teach religion at all, sensible. Religions can then be put into a context: that there are people who have no religion and there are people who have.

But it's not just the Mail's take: it's also lousy journalism. A Mail hack knows he can get away with the utmost shit if it leads to a screaming headline with some sensationalism in it, manufactured though that sensationalism is in this case.

So he gets brownie points.

However, if you read on you realise it's a story that comes down in favour of humanism and the new bit of the curriculum. There's even a priest quoted:

Reverend Kevin Logan, a local journalist, author and religious community leader, said: "It is quite a change but it is completely right to recognise atheism and humanism.

"They are religions like any others. It is just that people worship man instead of a god.

"I am certainly not worried about Christianity. It can stand against any belief and come out in a good light."

And others quoted in the story come out in favour of a more sensible approach, too. So why do the headline (which is down to the subeditor, usually, not the writer) and the intro make out it's a crime against humanity to teach kids as young as four about atheism?

And nowhere, you'll note, does it venture to suggest that it's perhaps more dangerous to teach kids as young as four about religion, rather than leaving that till later in their school lives, when they are better able to offer critical judgement.

Muslim medics may be allowed to be less hygienic, it seems

If I refuse to be treated by a Muslim medic in a British hospital, does that mean I’ll be shown the door? Will they say, “You’ll have to be treated by whoever is on duty or you can bugger off and die of your injuries”?

The reason I ask is this. It seems that Muslim staff in hospitals will now be able to escape a hygiene rule, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Female staff who follow the Islamic faith will be allowed to cover their arms to preserve their modesty despite earlier guidance that all staff should be “bare below the elbow”.

The Department of Health has also relaxed rules prohibiting jewellery so that Sikh members of staff can wear bangles linked with their faith, providing they are pushed up the arm while the medic treats a patient.

One of the reasons for the below-the-elbow ruling was to cut down on hospital-acquired bugs, which are dangerous, not to say deadly, little critters.

This guidance was introduced by Alan Johnson, the current Home Secretary, when he was Health Secretary in 2007.

The rules were drawn up to reduce the number of patients who were falling ill, and even dying, from superbugs such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile.

Revised guidance which relaxed the requirements for some religions was published last month.

Some Muslim staff and those from other groups may be allowed to use disposable plastic over-sleeves which cover their clothes below the elbow and allow the skin to remain covered up.

Derek Butler, chairman of MRSA Action UK, said: “My worry is that allowing some medics to use disposable sleeves you compromise patient safety because unless you change the sleeves between each patient, you spread bacteria.

“Scrubbing bare arms is far more effective.”

The Department of Health spokesman says, “The guidance is intended to provide direction to services in how they can balance infection control measures with cultural beliefs without compromising patient safety.”

If scrubbing is best, how do they not compromise patient safety. Or by “balance” do they mean, “Well, we can tolerate a few deaths to appease the superstitions of Muslims”?

What has changed since that guidance was issued to give the impression that maybe scrubbing is not the best way after all?

Is this all smacking of our old friend PCGM (political correctness gone mad) here?

Hard-done-to Christians – again

Christians are rolling out their old argument again: the government in the UK is being beastly to them.

A bunch of Church of England bishops and other befrocked men whose real contribution to society is questionable have written a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, and cite, among others, the case of a nurse who was not allowed to wear a crucifix at work. This was probably for health-and-safety reasons, but Christians always see it otherwise.

Traditional Christian beliefs are being sidelined, say these frothing idlers, who have nothing better to do than compose letters to national newspapers. It shows what a sinecure their jobs really are. You get to swish around in robes or wear a purple dicky and look busy and important and go to meetings, many of them with government agencies and departments, with local government representatives, with MPs, with councillors. Twenty-six of these unproductive individuals sit in the House of Lords as of right.

Oh, I see, that sort of sidelining.

We have countless religious schools – they like to call them “faith” schools – and prayers are said before Parliament proceeds with its daily business. There are those 26 bishops in the Lords. Christian ceremonies are held to mark national occasions.

Yes, I see it now: that sort of sidelining.

“The church leaders said it was unacceptable in a civilised society to dismiss Christians from their jobs over matters of conscience,” says the BBC story I’ve linked to above. Isn’t it unacceptable in a civilised society to allow “conscience” born of beliefs in sky fairies to dictate life for others, when it’s your job to provide a particular service or goods? You can have all the conscience you like, but don’t expect your conscience and the job you’re paid to do to sit happily side by side, because they won’t. Leave the job.

As for the nurse, Shirley Chaplin, they have a point in one respect at least: “They accuse nurse Shirley Chaplin’s employers of treating her beliefs with disrespect, while happily allowing symbols of other religions to be worn.”

If that’s the case, of course, then it’s wrong to discriminate – and it won’t surprise PT readers that authorities in Britain have discriminated in favour of whingeing Muslims, for instance, for the sake of something called a multicultural society (and for political correctness, of course, and for votes). If you’re going to ban religious trumpery, you must ban it for all – or allow it for all. Personally, I have no huge objection to the latter (on the simple grounds that any piece of adornment is potentially going to have some significance beyond its mere appearance) unless it has downsides. And it does.

A Muslim woman can’t be allowed to wear a bin bag while working in a hospital, for instance, or when she’s having her photo taken for ID purposes.

A Sikh man can’t be allowed to carry a knife – the so-called kirpan – around the place, where it can be used to violent ends (if not by him, then by anyone who decides to steal his dagger).

A Christian nurse can’t be allowed to wear a dangly piece of jewellery if it might drop into somebody’s open intestine during an operation (or, more likely, be grabbed in desperation by a struggling patient, causing potential harm to the nurse).

If a Sikh student is to be allowed to wear a bangle in a school that has a no-jewellery policy, then all students at the school should be allowed to.

But, of course, when such objections are put forward, the first thing the religionist bleats about is discrimination.

The judge who missed the point

Fancy taking a dagger into school with you? Onto a plane? Into any other public space? Chances are you’d be stopped if it was found on you, and made to part with it – even be hauled off for possessing an offensive weapon.

That is, of course, unless you subscribe to a particular brand of god bothering.

A judge has said that kids ought to be able to carry their ceremonial dagger, the so-called kirpan, in school. Sikh kids, that is. And the judge’s own religion? Well, Sikh, of course.

He is Sir Mota Singh, who has criticised schools over the issue of weapons – er, sorry, kirpans.

“Not allowing someone who is baptised to wear a kirpan is not right,” Singh told the BBC’s Asian Network.

Oh, yes? How does he work that out? What is right and not right in a society that doesn’t generally allow weapons to be carried on the person – especially in sensitive areas such as schools and airports? What the hell has baptism got to do with it?

“Last year,” says the BBC story linked to above, “a Sikh police officer, who had been told to remove his turban during riot training, won a discrimination case against Greater Manchester Police.”

Can’t do much harm with a turban, though, can you? You could strangle someone with it, I guess, but you could probably do that with a trouser leg or a belt.

The same story also tells us a schoolboy was also banned from “wearing” his kirpan at the Compton School in Barnet, north London. This fact follows straight on from the turban reference, as if the two were comparable.

They are, but not in the weapons sense. They are comparable in the sense that health and safety trumps religions – or should. If Mr Bloggs or Mr Smith isn’t allowed to wear some sort of towel round his head during such training, Mr Bhachu or Mr Narindra should not be, either.

There was also the case in 2008 of a girl in a Welsh school who insisted on wearing a religious bangle. I’d have no objection to this if it didn’t contravene health-and-safety rules and if the school’s policy were to allow such jewellery. But the school’s policy was not to allow it. You may disagree with that (and the bangle looks unimposing and harmless enough), but, if kids of other religions and none are expected to follow the rules, so should those of the Sikh religion.

Mota Singh is quoted as saying, “I wear my Kirpan and I’ve always worn it for the last 35 to 40 years, even when I was sitting in court or visiting public buildings, including Buckingham Palace. I think these are issues that can be dealt with with a certain amount of sensitivity.”

Yes Sir Mota – sensitivity to public safety, which means not carrying daggers to school.

The Compton School even bent over backwards to accommodate the silly practice, by offering the boy the option of wearing a smaller knife, welded into a metal sheath, rendering it harmless, one assumes, but his obstinate parents refused and withdrew him from the school.

Well, that’s up to them. I wouldn’t want a kid of mine to be going to a school where kids are allowed to carry daggers, thanks very much.

Singh also says there’s been no reported incident of a Sikh using a knife to cause injury. As a judge he ought to know better than to use such an argument. That it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. And, anyway, if a kid with a dangerous dagger on his belt got into a fight, there’s always the danger that the weapon would be nicked by another kid and used in said fight.
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Related links:
Let religionists carry knives into Parliament building, says MEP
Head case

Head case

If you can’t do your job because you’re wearing some unnecessary head gear, you expect to have to take it off, right?

Wrong!

A 31-year-old, turban-wearing Sikh cop, Gurmeal Singh, is now “in line for a payout from Greater Manchester Police”, says the Daily Mail.

There are some complexities in this story, and one suspects that both sides have perhaps not acted as well as they might, but this blog is, among other things, about religious privilege, and that’s what is happening here.

If someone else wanted to wear a huge jokey bandage around his head, just because he fancied it, he’d be told to take it off if it got in the way of his job. This turban did.

It’s bad enough that Sikhs get away with not having to wear crash helmets on motorbikes; now they can win compensation from their employers.

The solution is simple: if you feel you can’t do a job for religious reasons, don’t do the job. Do another job.

Head case

Oh, dear! Yet another scheme for wasting taxpayers’ dosh in order to appease the Deluded Herd.

Scientists, we’re told in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, are developing bulletproof turbans so that Sikhs can work as certain kinds of cop.

“Sikhs are currently barred from becoming firearms or riot police because their religion does not allow them to remove their turbans to put on protective headgear,” says the Telegraph.

“I think there needs to be a recognition from the Home Office that would allow Sikh officers to carry out these roles,” bleats Inspector Gian Singh Chahal, of Kent Police, who is also and vice-chair of the British Police Sikh Association.

No, Mr Chahal, there doesn’t. You can carry out the roles if you wear the proper headgear. Why should there be more money spent making Kevlar head rags just to satisfy some superstition?

School’s out – again!

No wonder kids grow up dumb, can’t spell and use crap grammar. As if there weren’t enough days off for religious reasons, the Great and the Good now want to add more.

According to this Daily Mail story, festivals such as Eid, Ramadan and Diwali are an excuse for some local authorities to shut the schools for a day or more.

Staff won’t get the day off, because training days will be rearranged to coincide with these newly enforced holidays. But what of the staff who would wish to have time off for these festivals – Muslims, Sikhs and members of other variants of the Deluded Herd? Would they be forced to do their training days then? Seems unlikely.

Already, says the story, “Parents are legally entitled to take their children out of school for non-Christian festivals”.

Why? Why should they be allowed to take their children out of school for anything but emergencies, given that schooling is compulsory (something you may or may not agree with, but, for the moment, it’s there) for all kids?

Under this nonsense,

local authorities including Manchester, Oldham and Tower Hamlets in East London are granting schools permission to close for up to three days to cover holy days such as the Islamic festivals of Eid al Fitr and Eid ul Adha.

In guidance likely to be finalised in the summer, schools in some areas are being told they can consider closing for the day if 40 per cent of pupils are likely to be absent to observe a religious festival.

So the other 60 per cent of kids just get a day off? Or are the “holy” days to be “given back” by the pupils, who will have their summer holidays shortened? Doubt it.

More education lost, it seems – and all for religion. Yet another case for keeping it out of schools – indeed out of the public square – altogether. If kids are taken out of school for some religious festival, they should be deemed to be playing truant. If their parents are to blame, they should face the legal consequences.

Which may seem unfair, since Christians get time off for their bits of nonsense. However, that, while not being ideal, is historical, and our school system has been built around it.

If overnight we ceased to recognise the religious significance (for those who believe) of Easter and Christmas, those breaks from routine would no doubt continue (although it’s about time the Easter, or spring, break was held at the same time each year – say around the spring equinox).

So, given that we do need holidays at certain times of the year, what are now Christmas as a midwinter festival and Easter as a spring festival are as good times as any to celebrate and have some time off.

You may argue that two weeks or more at Christmas and Easter amount to too much time off for teachers and pupils, when they get six or seven weeks off in the summer, but that’s another argument.

The fact is that councils continue to arrange things around people’s superstitions, and there’s no telling where it will all end.

Bangle wrangle – counting the cost

The bangle wrangle we were reporting on last year has cost the British school at the centre of it a cool two hundred grand. That’s the price of religion when it gets uppity and claims special status.

As you can see from this story from last autumn – and those linked to in it – a Sikh girl at a Welsh school insisted on her “right” to wear a bangle when the school’s policy was against it.

That school policy, which allowed only ear studs and watches, affected all pupils, not just this one. But, you see, this was a religious piece of jewellery – and the High Court ruled in favour of the pupil, thereby ruling in favour of superstitious nonsense. The girl does not have to wear a bangle, simple as that.

Now the Express tells us that, as well as the £200,000 legal bill,

education bosses have been ordered to pay the student banned from wearing the Sikh Kara bangle damages believed to be at least five figures.

Aberdare Girls’ School, in Aberdare, Wales, is reeling from the bill, which includes an invoice from human rights group Liberty, who brought the case on behalf of Sarika Watkins-Singh, 15.

The school’s own legal fees top £76,000.

The row began when Watkins-Singh was excluded from the school earlier in the year for refusing to remove the bangle. The school denied any racial discrimination.

Well that was because there was no racial discrimination. The bangle seems to be something that followers of a particular belief system insist that they have to wear.

All the more reason for kicking religion out of the public square – and that means schools – except as something to learn about, as a valid academic subject. It just causes problems – and costs money.

A TaxPayers’ Alliance spokesman, Mark Wallace, is quoted in the Express story as saying, “This case means a headache for the taxpayer, who will ultimately be forced to stump up.

“This just emphasises the need for schools to be given full control of their rules and regimes without risk of politically correct enforcement. The problem in this case arose because of interference from other parties.”

Other parties that used their political correctness in pursuit of a policy of appeasing the Deluded Herd.

Faiths’ hopes of parity – but at what cost?

If you ever wished to ponder on just what a “faith” cacophony we have in UK schools, you could do worse than read an article in today’s Independent.

It begins by referring to the headteacher in Sheffield, Yorkshire, who stopped Muslims from having their own separate religious assembly. And quite right, too.

Some teachers, as the Indie points out, use imagination to get over potential conflicts, while keeping their assemblies broadly Christian, as they are supposed to be by law.

But just how much effort in time and logistics could be saved by getting religion out of schools altogether, except as a subject of academic study?

It continues to amaze me that the authorities just don’t see it – or don’t want to see it. Are they just plain thick?

If a school assembly is there as a meeting for the whole school, so that staff can make announcements, pupils can feel a sense of community and both staff and pupils can do whatever else they get up to in assemblies (minus the religious mumbo-jumbo, that is), then surely that is so much the better.

“Not all schools have such harmonious relationships with parents,” says Steve McCormack’s article. “The Sheffield case is one example of a disagreement escalating seriously, but there are plenty of other cases where teachers are uneasy at the way Muslim parents try to influence what happens in school.”

Yes, they can be pushy and demanding:

Another teacher[,] from a secondary school in Essex, complains about the way that Islam, and other faiths, are allowed to intrude on school life. “Every year we see some 15- and 16-year-old girls just disappearing from school,” she says. “Everyone knows it is for arranged marriages. But no one makes a fuss. If they were from other families, we wouldn’t let it happen.”

Other parents insist their children can’t do anything active, or go on school trips, during the month of Ramadan, because they are fasting during day-time. “This isn’t good for their education, and I’ve tried explaining my understanding that it’s not compulsory under Islam for children to fast during Ramadan, but they won’t budge,” says the head of a primary school in outer London. “I get the impression that fasting is treated as a badge of honour by these children and their parents.”

But it’s not only Muslim parents who make life difficult for headteachers, says McCormack:

At a school near the outskirts of London, a head teacher recently found himself under intense pressure from parents of Sikh and Hindu pupils, because he allowed Muslim children to use a hut in the playground for prayers on Friday lunchtimes, under the supervision of a parent volunteer.

“When this news got out, some of the Sikh and Muslim parents were up in arms,” he says. “It had an incendiary effect. I was having people coming into school and talking to me for an hour about their unhappiness at this decision. They were very hostile, but I did not change my decision.”

My case rests. Religion is divisive, toxic and dangerous – or can be. Left to the home and the meeting house (be that a mosque, a church or a madrassa) it can then be contained, and its effects need not infect others against their will.

But, of course, we have to kowtow to all religions, and it’s our kids who are suffering. Do the authorities give a rat’s arsehole as long as cuddly “faith” gets its way? Do they hell!

Let religionists carry knives into Parliament building, says MEP

An MEP wants Sikhs to be able to carry knives into the European Parliament building.

She says they can carry them into Westminster, so why not the European Parliament?

Lib Dem MEP Liz Lynn was speaking as an all-party Sikh interest group is launched, but some Sikhs have been denied access to the Parliament building because they seem to think they have to carry a knife – a ceremonial thing called a kirpan.

No, they don’t. If it’s ceremonial and not a weapon, as they claim, why can’t they carry a representation of it? And what are they doing being allowed to carry weapons into Westminster, when anyone else would not be allowed to do so?

This loopy PC MEP puts forward this crazy logic: “I am deeply disappointed that the European Parliamentary authorities refuse to recognise the right of Sikh people to wear the kirpan.

“The kirpan is not a weapon: it is a religious symbol. This is not a question of security but one of religious freedom.”

Even if each and every Sikh who was allowed to enter a government building carrying a knife had only the purest of intentions (and that cannot, of course, be guaranteed), the fact that that weapon is on his person if he got into an contretemps – even by no fault of his own – is itself a security issue. If ten Sikhs are in a meeting, there are ten knives in the meeting.

And what if a religious type claimed it was his fundamental religious freedom to carry an AK-47?

Where I do agree with her is when she says, “I do not see why the rules should be different in the European Parliament.” Quite. The rules shouldn’t be different for the two parliaments. The knives should not be allowed into Westminster – unless, of course, everyone were allowed to carry one, which might not be wise.

Jews and Sikhs are cross with Auntie

We hellspawn secularists aren't the only ones who think the world's gone mad in kowtowing to Islam, it seems.

Now Jews and Sikhs are joining the bandwagon. They're accusing the BBC of making a disproportionate number of programmes about Muslims compared with those about their own religions.

I suppose they'd like the number of programmes increased to the Muslim number. I have a better idea: bring the Muslim-inspired programmes – indeed, all religious programmes – down to the Jew and Sikh levels. Then we might find useful, stimulating, informative and interesting programmes about religion instead of those that merely showcase it.

Bangle wrangle: the story continues

The Sikh girl who won the right to wear a kara, a slim bracelet worn as a sign of faith, at her school in South Wales is now saying up yours to the school and moving on.

You can see the background at "Baubles, bangles and bias" (which we posted in August) and links you'll find on that post, but, basically, Sarika Watkins-Singh's school Aberdare Girls' School, has a jewellery policy that was thrown into chaos by a High Court judge who ruled that, in spite of the fact that the rest of the kids can wear only ear studs and watches, Watkins-Singh can wear a bangle.

OK, it's slim and inoffensive, but equality is equality. If she can wear a bangle, then so should everyone else, and I do hope the kids are kicking up a hell of a stink about it and are all wearing tiaras and diamond-studded nipple rings in protest.

Anyway, Watkins-Singh has now decided that, in spite of the fact that Aberdare has told her she can go back there, she'll go to nearby Mountain Ash Comprehensive School instead (she studied there while she was suspended during the row).

Secularism – a cast-iron case

Is there a cast-iron case for a secular society? Nick Cohen thinks so, writing in today's (UK) Observer.

He looks at how anti-discrimination laws aim to, well, to prevent discrimination based on, inter alia, sexuality. But then he makes the point that religion seems to want to go beyond that, and it's a cogent argument. Go read. Among the cases he cites is the one of the Sikh school pupil in Aberdare, South Wales, whom we've featured a few times (see "Baubles, bangles and bias" from Friday's Pink Triangle posts).

Cohen doesn't like the Aberdare judgment any more than we did:

Last week, Mr Justice Silber ruled that Aberdare Girls' School in South Wales had been guilty of racial discrimination when it excluded Sarika Watkins-Singh for insisting on wearing a religious bracelet. It was a trivial case, which made you wonder about the dogmatism of both sides and the quality of their lawyers. The school could have given way – the bracelet was little more than a slim band. Watkins-Singh's parents could have accepted that they had a duty to uphold the authority of the teachers. Still, for all the pettiness, Mr Justice Silber's judgment was remarkable for his inability to recognise that a just society should treat people equally. He didn't rule that all the girls at Aberdare had the right to wear bracelets, just Watkins-Singh, because she was its only Sikh pupil.

He says that so imbued with discriminatory thinking have politicians and judges become that "they are shocked when citizens ask for equality before the law".

Baubles, bangles and bias

We're not the only ones here at Pink Triangle to pose the question about what will happen to schools' dress codes after the case of the 14-year-old Sikh pupil in South Wales who won her case after a dispute over her bangle.

The kara is a thin, unobtrusive bangle that is considered essential (see our previous posts, "So it's any bling goes at school today" and "Bangle wrangle") within the Sikh religion. Why should there be a fuss over something so inoffensive? you may ask.

But the school, at Aberdare, said no jewellery except ear studs and watches. That sounds to me like a rule that says, "No exceptions!" But an exception has been made, and that exception has been made in the name of religion.

And that is favouring the religious above others, who might wish to wear, say, a nose stud or a special kind of necklace – equally unobtrusive, you could argue – for good reasons of their own.

But they wouldn't be allowed to. Yet the Sikh girl is allowed her bangle.

The Times Educational Supplement has a report today, and teachers' unions, it seems, aren't happy. They need guidance.

The only guidance that can come out of this is that pupils be allowed to wear only what the school stipulates is allowable, except in the case of religious requirements. Or perceived religious requirements.

And that would be grossly unfair and morally indefensible.

Sikh equality, and find inequality

That bangle wrangle is not over yet. It's being hotly debated. You'll remember from our story of yesterday, "So it's any bling goes at school today", that 14-year-old Sarika Watkins-Singh of Cwmbach near Aberdare in South Wales won her case after her school had told her not to break its jewellery rules.

The rules say only ear studs and watches. Now you may agree or disagree with school rules, but that's not the argument. The argument is about applying them fairly.

In the case of Watkins-Singh, they are now not. On religious grounds alone, she got to wear her kara, the slim bracelet that Sikhs feel they have to wear.

Now we know the redtops are scurrilous rags, so we have to be careful citing the Daily Star, but today it quotes the deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Martin Ward, who, it says, "blasted the judgment".

Ward said, "The purpose of uniform is to create a community ethos and no individual pupils should be able to go their own way."

The Star also quotes a lawyer, Caroline Newman, as saying, "A time is coming where Muslim girls will be allowed to wear a full burka as part of their uniform, though it might have to be in a colour to match." They describe her, in redtop fashion, as a "discrimination guru" and quote her as adding, "This decision brings us one step closer to that day. It could open the floodgates [to] more religious clothing, jewellery and symbols to be allowed as long as they don’t incite racial hatred and are proportionate."

Finally, it presents us with Mohammed Shafiq of the Muslim Ramadan Foundation, saying, "This is a victory for citizens of all faiths."

It's a victory for total bollocks, that's what it is.

So it's any bling goes at school today

The High Court has effectively said that, if a school has a jewellery policy, it must waive it if the jewellery is considered of religious significance.

We reported in June on the case of the 14-year-old Sikh girl, Sakira Watkins-Singh, at Aberdare in South Wales, who was told she could wear only a watch and/or an ear stud. That was school policy. We said that there could be no objection to the wearing of the bracelet this girl wore – the kara – if school jewellery policy allowed it. The fact that it was of religious significance, in those circumstances, should have had no bearing.

But the school's policy is for watches and ear studs only, so it was logical either to ban the kara or allow any jewellery (any, that is, that didn't compromise health and safety).

But now the High Court has ruled that it's OK. The judge ruled that the school had discriminated under race-relations and equality laws. How a religious symbol is a race thing when Sikhism accepts converts is anyone's guess. But, then, as we know, Sikhs are allowed not to wear motorbike helmets because they've got several yards of cloth tied round their heads, for religious reasons, because it holds the hair they never cut, for religious reasons..

Bangle wrangle

That question of what one should be allowed to wear in school is being tested again. This time it's the Sikh girl from Cwmbach near Aberdare, Wales, who wants to wear a bangle at school.

It's a simple piece of adornment, and you might ask, What's the problem?

Well, if school policy were to permit all jewellery, not just ear studs and watches, there shouldn't be one, and this girl should be allowed to wear her kara. That is what religious freedom is about: fairness and equality (subject to the usual rules of social order).

But the school does have a studs-and-watches-only policy, so the girl is clearly seeking an exception to school rules only on the grounds of her superstition. And that's not on.

The case is being heard in the High Court, and it continues.

Sikh, and you shall find a £100,000 bill for the taxpayer

West Midlands Police, that bastion of political correctness, have allowed a hundred grand to be spent on trying to source helmets to fit in with the religious demands of Sikh officers.

Sikhs believe they have to wear a turban and have a long beard. Goodness knows why, but there it is. According to the Daily Mail, instead of telling one officer that he couldn't join the counterterrorist Operational Support Group unless he cut his beard to an acceptable length and took off his turban because the usual helmet didn't fit, they told him to try to source suitable head gear.

He'd been refused a place because there wasn't a suitable helmet or respirator that would fit over his turban. The unnamed constable, thought to be in his twenties, claimed he was being discriminated against. But he was "then assigned the task – while on full pay – of sourcing new equipment that would fit", says the paper. He contacted manufacturers across the world, but it was all in vain, and, after 18 months, he was restored to regular duties.

Then he's said to have gone on long-term leave suffering from stress. The Mail's source says it cost £100,000 and was "a shocking waste of taxpayers' cash".

The West Midlands force is quoted as saying, "'No Sikh officer has applied and been 'turned down' from joining the Operational Support Unit because of faith issues. However, it has been identified that for some members of the Sikh faith, the removal of the turban to wear a helmet and the wearing of a respirator could be problematic.

"As an employer committed to equality and diversity, we are working to try [to] find a solution to what is a national issue."

At more public expense, no doubt.