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Mon Sep 3, 2012, 09:15 PM Sep 2012

British Airways Clerk Joins Nurse Challenging Cross Rulings

By Heather Smith - Sep 3, 2012 7:00 PM ET

A British Airways clerk and a nurse who wore crosses to work are among a group of workers asking a European court to find that U.K. judges failed to protect their religious freedoms.

The British Christians have appealed cases to the European Court of Human Rights, saying U.K. judges wrongly backed disciplinary measures penalizing the crucifixes. Two other cases at the court in Strasbourg, France, today involve people who refused to perform duties they said contradicted religious opposition to homosexuality.

“This is about the relative weighting of freedom of religion and other discrimination issues,” said Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, which filed a brief backing the government position. “Freedom of religion isn’t a kind of trump card; it isn’t at the top of the hierarchy of rights and there are other considerations.”

Today’s hearing follows months of increasing tensions between the human rights court and the U.K., where politicians have railed against what they see as European interference in domestic matters.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-03/british-airways-clerk-joins-nurse-challenging-cross-rulings.html

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