After reading an article from Culture watch http://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/09/02/halal-certification-follow-the-money/ I was thinking is halel food certification merely a religious tax passed on to consumers.

Food produced and sold in Australia has to meet quality health standards to be fit for human consumption. Should further impost be placed on companies and passed to consumers to support a religious organisation? Should there be laws to stop religious organisations intimidating companies who meet health standards from boycotting foods not carrying halel certification when they meet Australian standards on food.

Dear Josephus,

What is the difference between Halel certification and
Kosher certification? Isn't it a choice left up to the
consumer which product they will support?

My orthodox Jewish relatives do not purchase foods from products with a kosher certification label that has imposed costs on the producer, they purchase from the shelf of the supermarket foods they know to be kosher. The producer is not required to pay [fund] a Jewish organisation to carry a kosher certification label.

However this is Australia and all foods produced and sold in Australia must meet standards fit for human consumption. All persons can choose from the range of foods available they for example do not have to eat kangaroo or crocodile meat which aboriginals may prefer. Those religious laws are ancient health laws because meat was being sold or exchanged from beasts that had died from disease or other causes. In Australia such beasts can only be used for dog meat.

Foxy,

There is a cost for Halal Certification and it is passed on to the general customer.

Were there a way for Muslims to be charged more at the cash register then I can see no problem but unfortunately there is not so the rest of us have to cop the extra because of their Koranic food laws.

Producers say that the cost is insignificant but that is not the point, if I go to a foreign country I am careful to observe their customs.
When I'm in India I eat with my right hand especially when in my favourite Muslim cafe as eating with the left hand, the one that is used in the loo, is considered very bad manners and offensive.
Hindus and Catholics there also generally only eat with the right hand.
I don't eat pig meat of any sort, except Bockwurst, so a lack of pork is no problem, however when in vegetarian areas I don't go looking for meat.

If I believed, as an article of faith, that my meat must be killed in a particular way and the customary method of killing in a country that I intended to live in did not conform then I'd either not go there or I'd kill my own or go without.
I'd not expect non-believers to cater to my religious whims.

Dear Josephus and Is Mise,

The following two links may be of interest to you:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/halal-food-outrage-from-antiislam-critics/story-e6frf7jo-1226992523050

And -

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/11/27/4137397.htm

Cheers.

Josephus, do you regard advertising on A Current Affair and Today Tonight as merely a bogan tax passed on to consumers?

If not, what's the difference?