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Please start with banning crosses as wall decoration in bavarian public authorities
That’s how I know this law will absolutely be used to target specific religions unless the fundamentalist Christians take it too far.
Would be too funny to see Markus Söder’s face if this would actually happen. “DeClInE oF tHe OcCiDeNt” or something like that.
I mean he did argue that they aren’t a religious symbol before. He later contradicted himself and said that they are but I would not be surprised if he made that stupid argument again.
Lol no, they’ll take Quebec’s lead and claim that those symbols are part of their “unique cultural heritage” and therefore exempt
I think they are already illegal by the Grundgesetz and Bavaria is just Bavaria and do whatever they want.
illegal by the Grundgesetz
Hm, what Article would that be?
Unfortunately the separation of state and church is not very thorough in Germany.And then there is Article 4
Article 4 [Freedom of faith and conscience]
(1) Freedom of faith and of conscience and freedom to profess a religious or philosophical creed shall be inviolable.
(2) The undisturbed practice of religion shall be guaranteed.Article 4 does indeed ban it.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruzifix-Beschluss https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/kruzifix-urteil-bayern-jubilaeum-1.4906155
Bavaria is indeed violating the constitution here. There’s merely not much done to enforce it here.
Wonder how they’ll cope here in rural Austria.
Banning american propaganda from european society?
How about crosses in public institutions? Asking for a (bavarian) friend.
Yes please ban those too
In Italy I was a member of UAAR (The Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics) and we supported the legal costs of people battling against crucifixes in the workplace, compulsory prayers and even acoustic pollution caused by the church bells. This was in the late '90s to early '00s.
acoustic pollution caused by the church bells.
I really, really wish religious people would finally switch to clocks and phone notifications for their niche events like everyone else. Many people also have an odd romantic notion of this noise pollution. Sort of like the idiots who think loud motorbikes or sports cars make them look cool.
I guess it’s cus everyone has a different standard of what pollution is for them. For me, the sound of windchimes calm me, I find industrial air vents relaxing, and church bells oddly peaceful, but can’t stand someone even driving near me, dogs barking, babies crying, or fluorecent lights flickering. But you know, people need to drive, dogs and babies need to talk, and the world goes on.
can they ban you for wearing a necklace with a cross? or a scarf around your head? This is madness, what bad does it do to other people, this is like banning lgbtq people from kissing outside cause it makes others uncomfortable.
This isn’t about banning people from wearing their religious merchandise in public. This is banning religious objects from workplaces. More precisely just public workplaces. Of course a secular state should also have secular workplaces. And the way labour rights are personal life can be completely banned from your workplace. Why would religion be treated differently?
Is that the workplace you want? Devoid of personal lives but mere drones who congregate to labour and then disperse into their personal lives where finally they are free to express themselves how they want?
If your personal life is 100% religion, you’re a drone anyway.
The ol strawman
No I want democratic workplaces. But also workplaces without religion nonetheless.
I think it gets pretty hypocritical, singling out religion like that. In the workplace, I can have memorabilia of my favorite sports team even though someone else hates it (unless perhaps it’s a Catholic School team that has a cross in its logo?). I can have the flag of a hostile foreign country because I’m proud of my heritige. I can have a picture of me kissing my wife even though it would normally be just outside the common no-tolerance Harassment policy. Unless it was taken at the wedding, or in/near a religious monument. I can wear gauge earrings, or just a little star… as long as it’s not a Star of David. Ditto with pendants, even new-agey wooowooo pendants, as long as it’s not a pentagram. There’s no path there that isn’t hypocritical.
Freedom of religion and freedom from religion go hand-in-hand, and it’s not always an easy relationship to figure out. Forced private secularism is its own anti-freedom problem, even when discussing the employee at a government workplace. It’s not really secular if I’m forbidden from wearing something for solely religious reasons. Even if the religious reason is that the thing I want to wear is religious.
I’d say there is a difference between politics and regular hobbies at the workplace. Religion is a very political issue, one about your worldview and beliefs.
From a political point of view, irreligion is religion. Telling every single person who works at a location how they are or aren’t allowed to peacably express their religious views or lack thereof is a religious action by government. By definition, not secularism.
It’s ok (-ish) to actively seek an atheist state, but it’s duplicitous to do it under the guise of secularism. The separation of Church and government (secularism) most accurately means that government “make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise”. I hate to go all “Murica”, but the concept is secularism is often tied to that prior quote. How is telling people they can’t wear a cross or pentacle or anything in between anything but “prohibiting its free exercise”?
Is that a trick question? Because my answer is a resounding yes.
That’s what capitalism wants. They want their leaders and ceos to be their gods.
like banning lgbtq people from kissing outside cause it makes others uncomfortable.
We’re talking about bans in workplaces here. And I think that your example is fitting. If a workplace can ban people kissing (or wearing a pyjama then it should be allowed to ban religion affiliated clothing as well. That sad, I do be live that in most cases employers shouldn’t be allowed to ban these things. If you end up working with your boyfriend and occasionally share a short kiss, that’s not going to affect your work and if you’re able to do your job in your PJs, then you should be allowed to do so.
No they can not ban you, but they can ban your cross.
If you can’t live without your cross, that is on you.
Technically, covering your “naughty bits” is a religious taboo. Can they ban that?
Other people are calling that a slippery slope, but crosses as symbols absolutely transcend religions as much as clothing as a religious moral.
thing is most peoplenIknoew, when they wear a cross or smt, it’s not even a big deal for them, theyre just just wearing, doesn’t mean they are going to siddenly start talking to you about religion.
Those people aren’t the problem. The people who can’t even take that little step of taking the cross off are the problem. Religion should be kept out of matters of state.
Religion should be kept out of matters of state.
Demanding someone remove jewelry because you don’t approve of its religious connotations is not secularism. It’s the opposite.
If religion is kept out of matters of state, state needs to be blind to religion, not zealously purging all signs of it.
Just wear it under your shirt.
No, it’s not on you, that’s against the rules now
The title is false, it’s only a judgment in court on whether member states should be allowed to ban such visible signs for public servants or should be deprived of that right.
Yeah, it’s one less freedom for the citizens(, and more freedom for the member states), but as someone (still )living in France it’s probably for our security or whatever(, this says it’s our guarantee for freedom).
It’s not worse than when they killed the Church, religion is too important and now it’s gone, and our lives ~solely guided by/for virtue/‘(the city of )God’ with it, they can ban all religions now for all i care, religion’s places aren’t for the private lives only, it shine’s/d’ mostly when it’s the main pillar of our state. What is supposed to guide us when it’s gone, the “realism” of a selfish quest for power ? No consequences for sinning if you’re not caught(, since morality is relative/inexistant) ? Looking at “our” feet, satisfied, instead of the humiliating highness of the skies/Sky ?
What is religion if not realising we’ll never be enough because our eyes ‘look at’/‘are searching for’ Perfection/Maximum ? We killed our link with God and replaced it with idols, our downfall was announced and our decadence has been visible in the last centuries, poets were the first to disappear, we’re so decadent that we don’t even realize that people from the past wrote hundreds of time better than us, the scientific explosion was already unstoppable before the XVIIIth century, it isn’t linked in any way to our destruction of the benevolent Church.
It’ll just be one more deserved downfall after all, i wouldn’t cry over it if we didn’t try to bring others down with us, the sooner we disappear the better, we’ve long assumed our dishonesty in the name of “realism” or whatever, we’re not christians, nor are we even trying to be, it’s for irrealist goody-two-shoes, not for serious people, and i’m fed up currently, there are still a vast majority of good people but i’m angry, hopefully it’ll pass like all things, are we even trying to build a better world ? What’s our plan/vision ? What am i supposed to support here, capitalist “democracy” with depoliticized citizens and owned private medias, what else ? The “rule of law” that changes according to whoever obtained power/wealth ? What else, our innemurable murderous ventures in every single non-western country in the last 100 years, and irrecoverable cultural annihilation through colonisation before that ? Our propaganda against “unfree” “regimes” needing to be liberated ? What am i supposed to support if we’re not even aiming&acting for a better world for all ? It doesn’t seem like we’re trying, just a nationalistic “America/France/… first” all around, short-term visions and widespread fear&hate, not any ounce of love towards our designated enemies, no plan for living in a mutual peace, what makes us on the right side if not our pitiful/disdainful lies against our so-called enemies ? If we(sterners) don’t support humanity then why would i support us ? Our duty is to make a better world for all, not for our group, neo-colonialism is a shame, and we’re lying about it like with so many other things, it’s not clever to lie we’re so despicable, we should help each other, for real, we should f*cking change, now. If not our downfall is to be hoped for, and the rest of humanity should cheer for it if it means the advent of a better world for all of us.
Sounds fair to me, we need less religion everywhere.
What I don’t get is the right wing pushing this and the left wing being against it, while the hero of the far left said ‘Religion is the opium of the masses.’
An argument I’ve heard against it is that it’s overly harmful against non-western religions, specifically Islam. A pretty common tenet in Islam is some kind of head covering for woman. Banning that is a pretty sweeping reform. Christianity and Catholicism don’t have anything like that, and if you really wanted to wear a cross you could just hide a necklace under your shirt. And Judaism, most non -orthodox Jews don’t wear a yamaka 24/7. So in the end (typical) white religions aren’t affected while minorities are.
Personally for me I don’t care about wearing a religious symbol as long as you’re not pushing your agenda. I don’t care if my boss has a Bible on his desk any more than if he had a copy of dragon Ball z.
I would vastly prefer if my boss had DBZ rather than a Bible. BDZ is just literature, the Bible is a symbol of indoctrination, I don’t want my boss to be influenced by some made up nonsense
Nuns and priests would not be allowed to wear their religious clothes either, so I’m okay with that.
It is not the secular state’s fault that one religion chooses to be more backwards than the others by requiring religious clothing from all women, and is thus more affected by a ban on religious symbols.
Adapt to modernity or get the fuck out
And you expect that to be enforced?
Given that in one German state it was mandatory by state law to have a cross in every public building, from a party that is very overt about banning hijabs, i strongly doubt that.
The reality will be that this will target muslims everywhere and maxbe a few stry christians. But the vast majority of christian strongholds, like Germanys catholic south will simply not enforce it against christians.
So, we should just accept backwards superstition and archaic societal ideals because Bavaria is made up of Christian reactionaries?
Enforce it from Berlin then. Deploy personnel to monitor the application. If Bavaria tries to play favorites, big fines for each case.
As a german I am tired of conservative obstructionism, especially when it’s Bavaria, the german state embodiment of selfish and short sighted backwardness.
So, we should just accept backwards superstition and archaic societal ideals because Bavaria is made up of Christian reactionaries?
Enforce it from Berlin then. Deploy personnel to monitor the application. If Bavaria tries to play favorites, big fines for each case.
While i agree with your sentiment the reality is that christian fundamentalists (in appearance, in behaviour they are devilish unchristian) are still powerful in German politics and we see a resurgence in their popularity among the voters. The majority of the German people is happy with persecution of muslims and doesnt care about favoritism towards christians.
So, we should just accept backwards superstition and archaic societal ideals
No, we should fight that. With words. With arguments. And not by banning clothing.
Clothing is just a symbol and the meaning changes all the time and from context to context. People who want to ban clothing are just in favor of putting pressure on other people, on forcing others to be like them. It’s despicable.
I was a teenager with very long hair in the seventies. I loved my hair, it told the world that I was a free spirit. And it was a very powerful asshole-detector. Every now and then some backwarded adult would come up to tell me I would have been sent to concentration camp under Hitler. And it was quite obvious that they wished Hitler to come back and do so again. Just for me wearing long hair.
I don’t think you believe, but I am convinced that there are quite a number of young Muslimas here in Berlin who chose to wear a headscarf to uni while their mother says “Please, don’t risk your career!”
And they say: “Mother, this scarf tells them where I’m from. And if they keep me from having a career it’s not because of the scarf, it’s because they hate who I am.”
“All this pseudo-liberal, pseudo-tolerant, pseudo-feminist, pseudo-open-minded assholes, I would never detect them without that scarf! Now leave me alone, I’ve got a heritage to defend.”
You’re much closer to Söder than to a humanist.
So you whipped up a whole fictitious little story in which I’m the evil reactionary based on me being anti theist? Okay then.
And just for the record, you comment also illustrates perfectly the cognitive dissonance employed here. A muslim immigrant that is proud of their muslim heritage isn’t brave or admirable, it’s the same dumb shit as any german christian who would try to argue that.
I don’t want people to feel free to be ultra conservative religious quran thumpers because we are so liberal and tolerant. I want them to be taught that this shit isn’t welcome here and if they want to be they have to leave it behind.
The problem is that you have to treat religion equally and for a lot of European countries that would mean pushing Christian symbols out of public offices as well. Most Nordic countries, Greece and Malta have crosses on their flags for example. Many countries like Germany have parties, which are explicitly Christian. The Bundeswehr uses the Iron Cross as a symbol, which is in direct heritage from a crusader order.
The problem for those countries is that baning Islamic symbols is very often just racist rethoric to hit Islam, rather then a proper separation of state and religion.
It would be religionist, not racist. Islam is followed by many different races. But I get where you’re coming from. I’m all for getting rid of all the religious symbolism etc.
The right wing is pushing specifically for the banning of things like the hijab or other religious head coverings usually worn by women. They justify it by saying that these head coverings are a symbol of oppression against women, and have no place in a free society.
Thing is though, how free is a society if it feels it has to dictate what women can and can’t wear?
That’s the catch 22 isn’t it… “You’re not free to dictate that women must wear a hijab, because we are dictating they can’t wear one.”
However, this is only legislating public workplaces not everywhere, so it’s less dictatey than Islam.
The rest of the quote is: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Take from that what you will.
I also don’t know that most people who identify as or are called left wing would call Marx their hero.
In Spain religious symbols in public workplaces, official places and buildings are banned since years. You will see them only in religios buildings and churches, maybe in some old monuments.
How could I tell apart an islamic and an atheist headscarf? My mother often wore one in the 1960s and 70s, as was the fashion back then.
I mean, it’s more about code of vestment. Let’s say the code of certain workplace say that you have to have your face fully visible, you can’t wear anything that obstructs your face, if religious symbols were allowed you can justify yourself with “religious obligation”, the “atheist headscarf” was banned from the start
Just hope the 60s and 70s don’t come back, I guess? Or not care?
Edit: Okay, I really need to stop posting things right after waking up. I’m sorry; I hadn’t read the article. Hadn’t realized it focused on those. I suppose my answer still kinda works, though. Partially sarcastically, maybe. Bring back 60s/70s fashions to troll the clothes-banners and expect them to chill? I’m having a really hard time caring about other people’s clothes at the moment and don’t see why people think they have a right to dress others.
I prefer the “not care”.
Get a picture and ask enough people to get a statistically significant result. The meaning of a symbols is defined by what people think it means and of course that can change with place and time. Hence in Europe the headscarf would be religious now but not back then.
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Religious head scarves are worn in a distinct style that immediately give them away. You’re not disguising one of those as a simple accessory.
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“It’s not religious, it’s just a nice shape”
From the article:
Conclusion In the light of the foregoing considerations, I propose that the Court answer as follows the questions referred for a preliminary ruling by the tribunal du travail de Liège (Labour Court, Liège, Belgium):
(1) Article 2(2)(a) of Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation must be interpreted to mean that a provision of a public body’s terms of employment which prohibits employees from wearing any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious belief in the workplace, with the aim of putting in place an entirely neutral administrative environment, does not constitute, with regard to employees who intend to exercise their freedom of religion and conscience through the visible wearing of a sign or an item of clothing with religious connotations, direct discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, for the purposes of that directive, provided that that provision is applied
(2) Article 2(2)(b) of Directive 2000/78 must be interpreted to mean that a difference of treatment indirectly based on religion or belief arising from a provision of a public body’s terms of employment which prohibits employees from wearing any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious belief in the workplace may be justified by that body’s desire to put in place an entirely neutral administrative environment, provided, first, that that desire responds to a genuine need on the part of that body, which it is for that body to demonstrate; second, that that difference of treatment is appropriate for the purpose of ensuring that that desire is properly realised; and, third, that that prohibition is limited to what is strictly necessary.
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I’m not sure a hijab is a religious symbol. It’s just a covering worn for religious reasons. The hijab doesn’t have a fixed design or pattern that makes it significantly different from what western women wore in the fifties.
And if you can’t go out in public dressed like Sophia Loren, what even is the point of western civilization?
I’m not sure a hijab is a religious symbol. It’s just a covering worn for religious reasons.
The problem is, far rights won’t care.
Hardcore christian germans do have silly hair covering rules and such as well though.
They’ll say that’s not a symbol.
Well then there’s no discussion to the hijab either.
But as they are right wings, they’ll probably say hijabs are religious symbols. I don’t know what they’re thinking but that’s predictable.
I’m not sure a hijab is a religious symbol. It’s just a covering worn for religious reasons.
Lol
Such a cogent and articulate reply.
I didn’t think it was particularly impressive but thanks
Religious symbols where they belong, in churches, temples and religious institutions, in public places, administrations, public libraries, schools and universities have absolutely nothing to do with, there they can result in offense or discrimination for people of another or no faith. Sad politicians making an oath on the Bible (in Spain they do it on the constitution, without additions like “with the help of God”). Religion is a true social backwardness, the proof is theocracies, there are none in the world where basic human rights are respected and where social progress is possible.
So are headscarves for non-religious women going to be banned too? What about other modest clothing?
Are headscarves for men going to be banned?
I’m really curious to see what ends up getting caught in these laws.
Like Sikh turbans and Emerati ghutra? Yeah, I wonder too.
I assumed those were going to be banned in religious grounds too.
No, I just mean just a bearded hipster dude with a piece of cloth on his head looking all groovy and shit.
Are bandanas a trend again? Not really professional attire tbh but gen z is full of surprises.
“In the workplace” is the thin end of the wedge. Wait for “in government buildings” and “near schools”, before an actual honest to God ban.
Orthodox Jews banned from public workplaces is not a good look tbqhwy.
But they’re not banned, religious clothing is
These bans are making someone choose between their religious convictions and employment.
And a choice is not a ban.
Give me all your money or I kill you. It’s not a ban on your finances, coercion, extortion or whatever bad words exist. You can just choose not to live. It’s a choice, your choice : )
Its not a real choice. It is meant to reduce the number of people of certain religious affiliations from public workplaces aka ban them.
Consider if the “choice” given women was between presenting male and giving up their jobs. Or not to be considered for a job. It would in effect ban women because they would either have to give up their gender identity at least for the duration of the work or not work there.
Likewise here it would be allowed to make the denunciation of ones religious convictions a job requirement. It’s atrocious.
It’s stupid. I agree.
If an Islam woman not in hijab starts wearing headscarves everyday just as a fashion anyway, theoretically it’s not a religious whatever. So what’s the point those far right idiots are making.
I would love so much to see headscarves and hair wraps become a trend just to fuck with this law.
- “Justice exists to record legally, ritually control made by the cops to normalize people” Michel Foucault
- tl;dr : acab
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What about fashion choices?
