«You asked what does it mean to treat all religions equally. What it means is that the laws and standards that govern the country are the same for everyone regardless of religion.»

The legend goes that in the city of Sodom (the twin of Gomorrah), they had a "standard" bed: when a guest came to town, they would put him on the bed - if he was shorter than the bed then they pulled him to match its length and if he was longer then they cut his legs.

So one must decide, either fairness or equality: you cannot have both!

«To be fair to each religion would mean to not make laws that are aimed as a burden for some religions.»

Whether a truck deliberately runs over you or an elephant stomps over you unintentionally because you just happen to be in his path, the result for you is the same...

Avoiding laws that deliberately prohibit religious practices, is already established in the Australian constitution - I was hoping that Morrison wanted to take it a step further.

«To be fair to a Jewish man (or woman), he can make his appeal to the court about when he can be a witness and ask the court to make amends for him.»

Yes, and in most cases the court is compassionate, but they do not have to, it depends on the goodwill of the individual judge, perhaps on his/her mood.

«are courts open on Saturdays, or is this a purely hypothetical stand point not a practical one?»

Courts are not open on Saturdays other than for urgent matters such as seeing those who were just arrested. But they could be sitting late on Fridays, when in mid-winter, sunset is around 5pm (4:30 in Hobart). The Jewish holidays, however, are based on the lunar calendar and could occur on any day of the week. The rules applying to the major Jewish holidays are almost the same as the rules of the Sabbath.

[continued...]

[...continued]

«To be fair to a Sikhish person is a much more difficult issue. The safety of a plane is the reason for the security measures to not allow a knife to be carried.»

Safety will not be compromised if the Sikh dagger is carried inside an unopenable hard metal case, which only security personnel could open on arrival.

It could incur a bit of an expense to provide this service in airports, but it would be straight-forward to implement for domestic flights. On international flights more sophistication is needed. I can think of several methods:

1) a cooperation agreement with foreign security agencies; or
2) the Sikh person has to purchase (or pay a bond on) the case and the lock is released automatically after some time (say 24 hours); or
3) the lock can be released by the Sikh him/herself, but only by obtaining a code on the internet, which will only be provided after the plane landed safely; or
4) the Sikh person has to purchase the case, then take it to a locksmith at the destination.

(technical notes: the case would also broadcast periodic signals to alert security if it was not taken on board the appropriate flight. For multi-legged international flights, cases can be placed inside larger cases)

An alternate approach is to provide Sikh people with a welded metal box that can never be opened, containing a Sikh dagger, other than their own which would go in the luggage. They would then pay a bond and receive a refund at their destination when they hand in the box.

YUyutsu,

I know many Sikhs and have flown into Amritsar a number of times and the passengers were mostly Sikhs.
The Sikhs that I know have no problems flying they pack their religious symbols in cargo luggage and that's that.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

Sorry I missed addressing you: my last double-post was addressed to you.

«Yuyutsu, do you know anyone, from any religion or perspective that doesn't want freedom to speak freely (even if it isn't about speaking about their religion it's about being able to speak freely about what they deem important).»

Oh everyone wants the freedom to speak freely, that's for sure, but does it have any religious benefit? Otherwise, while you could support or oppose ordinary desires, it would be unrelated to this thread about "Freedom of Religion".

If we look deep enough, nobody actually obtains any real benefit from anything but their religion. The difficult question, however, is what exactly does one's religion consists of - and while we can point at general outlines, the details differ from one person to another, and even for the same person, from one time to another.

Since feeble-minded humans (prophets aside) have a hard time distinguishing between the religious and the mundane, even the profane, I suggested that every freedom ought to be allowed in order to give us all the benefit of the doubt in case our actions are religious, but not in order to equally support all actions whatsoever.

There is this book, "The Sparrow" (by Mary Doria Russell) where radio broadcast is received from outer space and a Jesuit space expedition is sent to the source planet to convert the aliens. To cut things short, while they believed that the radio-music had a spiritual meaning, they (the sole survivor) discovered the hard way that it was a song in glorification of anal rape. Now should the aliens still be allowed to broadcast such "music"? Yet how dare we as mere mortal humans, presume to know what others' (including non-human aliens') religion is, what path best leads them to God?

Dear Is Mise,

«The Sikhs that I know have no problems flying they pack their religious symbols in cargo luggage»

SOME Sikhs have no problems, others don't fly. http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/33884/are-there-any-flights-which-permits-a-sikh-to-carry-a-kirpan

Some Jews also fail to observe the Sabbath, some Muslims fail to fast on Ramadan: this ought to be taken up between them and God, not between them and secular authorities.

Kirpans need not be more than 6cm long, so some airlines now do allow small kirpans:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/sikhs_can_carry.html
http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/sikhs-can-now-wear-small-kirpans-on-flights-in-canada/story-SQEEHMK6IdpwP41C2Ic87N.html

There was also one case where an airline allowed a kirpan where the sheath was permanently welded and could not be opened.

On starting the thread I honestly feared it would bring out bigots, seems only a few
I refrain from naming them, or the worst one, but remind posters if based on nothing but our posts, this is a subject to be careful with
And we can hope, but truly not expect, it will be treated like that during the debate when it comes before parliament
In the end it seems Christianity has changed during my lifetime maybe all faiths have
It would be unthinkable in the 1940,s to see pedophils in the faith,cash more important than Christ [or so it seems]and one side of politics claiming God is on their side