Israeli airline can't make women move seats for religious reasons, court rules

[Jim Lane]

15. The question is not whether the discrimination is reasonable....

The question is whether the accommodation is reasonable.

We have equal employment laws that prohibit sex discrimination in hiring. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church has a religious doctrine that bars women from the priesthood. The law accommodates that belief. Some Catholics favor ordination of women and there are certainly good arguments that the discrimination against women is unreasonable. Nevertheless, as long as the church persists in that position, it's not illegal.

Do you believe that the government should require the Catholic Church to ordain women?

Of course, not all forms of accommodation are reasonable. There was a devout Muslim woman who wanted her driver's license photo taken while she wore a hijab and chador. Only her eyes would have been visible. She said that her religion prohibited her from showing any more of her face, but her plea was rejected. Allowing such a photo would unreasonably impair the function of the license photo.

You can say "always accommodate" or "never accommodate" but, IMO, both of these easy, simplistic answers are wrong.

I'm not clear on your hypothetical. If the passenger claims a religious belief that requires her to sit next to a man, then she can, under the procedure I'm asking about, take a seat in one of the non-sex-segregated rows.

Another factor is that we don't want to enable people to make up phony religions just to evade laws they don't like. The Amish have a general and long-standing religious objection to paying FICA taxes, so they're exempted from Social Security. If a bunch of libertarians establish the Church of Ayn Rand and assert that they also object, they're out of luck -- they won't get the exemption. In your question, if it appears that the passenger is just making up a religion, the precedent of the Amish (and there are other such) would be a basis for rejecting the claim.