Abstract

Religiouos freedom within a certain range should be protected, but it carries responsibilities to which it too must be subject.

Article

Religious freedom, in a suitable sense, is most important and must be respected.  The rubis what the expression encompasses.

Plainly, it is not absolute. No one now would reasonably contend that it woould entitle a religion to carry out the full rigours of The Inquisition, and to burn heretics at the stake,nor for a parent to be cruel to a child for questioning the family's creed. Even firmly held religious beliefs would not justify a person's standing in the street outside a fundamentalist church and in a loud voice saying to entering worshippers a denunciation of the quality of their beliefs, particularly but not only if it could also be heard by nearby loiterers who might be incited to cause offence or harm to the worshippers.

The right to any freedom carries with it a responsibility not to abuse it, and it is no excuse that the tenets of the religion require the aherent to do so. That an adherent genuinely believes a perverted doctrine commanding the death of all non-believers is no justification for its legitimacy. The issue lies where the acceptable lines may be drawn.

A reasonable test is that the freedom should not permit a religious practitioner to harm another person.  That would include public statements which would be likely to offend those to or of whom it is reasonably plainly addressed,  Worse if it has a reasonable possibility of inciting others to cause harm to the subjects in any way.  Proselytisation is a self-serving and self indulgent excuse.

This would not impede religious discussion with persons who voluntarily submitted themselves to religious judgment, provided that it did not go further and incite them to do harm to others.

The "others" have a right to religious freedom also, which includes freedom from persecution, including offence, performed in the name of religion or incited by it, not to mention the right not to suffer the promulgation of unfortunate beliefs thrust on one without invitation.

The suggestion of imposing the onus of proving adverse economic consequences of the conduct of a religious practitioner on the business of an employer who discriminates against the practitioner on that ground is acceptable, Proof of a negative by the religious practitioner would be difficult.  It should be made clear that the positive proof may consist of reasonable inference from the circumstances, including the nature of the conduct, its distribution, and ordinary expectation.  It should not be strict.  Even then, there may be those whose natural bent would honestly be too slow to draw such an inference. The foregoing is subject only to the thought that perhaps the subject matter  of the proof should be that the conduct could work in the way described rather than that it does.

An alternative to solve the difficulty of imposing the onus of proof on the business isto modify it by providing that objectively offensive language, albeit religious, which is published by a party known to be associated with the business to more than a specified number of people is presumed to be adverse to its financial  welfare, unless the contrary is proved. This is not a prohibittion of objectively offensive speech, though that is done in other legislation relating to discrimination, but is a reasonable counterweight to the imposition of the onus of proofon the business. It is wholly a different thing from prohibition.

As those using religious speech receive the benefit of the protectionprovided by this proposal, they should reasonably expect to have the scales of fairness balanced, particularly if the matter turns on their use of offensive speech.