Less than or equal to

In this society all are equal. This may not be how some may be treated, they can be victimised or abused but legally all are entitled to the same liberties and freedoms, and they should be had regardless of how others deem to treat you. I’m reminded of this fact after a recent incident in which a hairdresser did not offer a muslim girl a job as she felt her headscarf gave an inappropriate message given the general focus of attire of a hairdresser, the event subsequently landed the employer in court under a discrimination charge. In my own youth I had an experience involving appropriateness of dress with my employers; I had chosen in my hasty and gaudy way as a teenager to wear a golden Kalashnikov pendant on a small chain (as opposed to the masses of industrial pig iron disguising itself as jewellery these days) just visible under my work clothes. My manager saw it as a wholly unsuitable gruesome symbol of suffering and death, as opposed to a nice crucifixes hung round the girls necks. Now I’m not quite sure what magical power it is that the almighty sky wizard imbues into these items which somehow makes them exempt from uniform, I fail to even see the reason why the thousand year old scribblings of a madman give certain people more credence for their beliefs than those who just believe independently, but evidently there is some valid argument why. Like fuck there is.

Secular belief, or what would be more rightly considered view, opinion, understanding; these beliefs have now taken on a lower order of importance compared to those who are told their beliefs by others, secularism may have historically always been considered subordinate but that was when society was not pretending to be anything even approaching fair. But it is now, in an age where equality is seen as a fundamental cornerstone of fairness and humane civilisation, that secular beliefs and atheist opinion are given second place to those of ‘faith’. And I use the word faith in inverted commas quite wrongly, they do have faith, in bucketloads, in fact that’s about all they fucking have. Certainly not logic, humility, acceptance, broad mindedness, curiosity, or most importantly knowledge of one’s own ignorance. But I digress into the analysis of the weaknesses of institutional belief which was not my intention, just a happy coincidence. One would ask, given the situation, whether someone with no religious affiliations would be allowed to wear a headscarf or an article of clothing which breaks dress code.

The answer would inevitably be no, but even if it was yes that does not wholly solve a problem. The person of faith, it is their position to choose to believe, to choose to follow, to choose to wear, to choose to express their self, and they are exempted from dress codes and uniforms in this manner. However it is not just the item that is allowed into the dress code, it is their free expression, it is their freedom and choice to choose that piece of dress; even if that item were to be allowed to all people that would not necessarily be equality, the secular may be allowed to make a slight alteration to their dress and might have a slightly increased range of things to wear, but they have not been given freedom to wear what they wish or what they believe they should. In this manner they have become second class citizens, not allowed the same freedoms or liberties afforded to those of faith, whose rights and reasons for free expression are no different to the secular, regardless of their history. This has not just happened, this is not just a state of affairs that has occurred through neglect, this has been endorsed, endorsed by a society who claims it acts out of equality no less. So it is in this way that certain items of dress due to certain fields of belief become exempt from rules and regulations (whether that be company dress or the legal obligation to wear a helmet), as have the beliefs and views of certain people become protected while others of secular beliefs have not. There should be no exceptions, or there should be exceptions to all. To give the few more rights and freedoms than others goes against everything a society should stand to protect.