ABSTRACT
The publisher of a magazine is found guilty of a crime because they have offended religious sensibilities. An employee gains more flexible working to accommodate prayer times in the wake of a court decision on their rights against the employer. A notice is served on a householder because they host religious meetings involving too many people, involving too much motor traffic at unsociable hours, and disturbing their neighbours. A religious official is allowed to withhold information from the police because of a duty to respect confidentiality, even though that information would benefit the police in locating a serious offender. A child is refused admission to a prestigious local school because they do not belong to the religious community the school was established to serve; another child is admitted to a school but objects to science lessons dealing with the theory of evolution as contrary to their religious beliefs. A religious organisation is characterised as supporting terrorism, and its adherents prevented from recruiting to it, raising money for it, or publicly bearing witness to its tenets; another organisation receives tax breaks which allow it to run a bookshop with lower profit margins than its non-religious competitors. A religious organisation changes its official doctrine on the use of medical products derived from human blood when faced with civil actions by relatives of members who died after refusing blood transfusions; another creates a ‘priesthood’ in order to gain immigration and taxation benefits, and to make it easier to deal with the makers of official policy. A citizen called to a jury refuses to serve on a capital case as their religious beliefs prohibit execution for any offence; another juror uses a set of Tarot cards to guide their consideration of the correct verdict. A judge prays in private before discharging their court duties; another judge explicitly refers to a religious text when interpreting the law, on the basis that the law was passed to give effect to the religious text.
