A NEW name was added this week to the sad pantheon of “persecuted” Christians in the UK: Celestina Mba, a residential care worker who brought a discrimination case against Merton council when it insisted that she should honour her contract to be available for work on Sundays.
Celestina Mba and Andrea Williams
Mba, a Baptist employed at the Brightwell children’s centre in Morden, thought this was a violation of her Christian beliefs – and so did the Christian Losers’ Legal Centre. Together they went sobbing to an employment tribunal, which yesterday found that:
While the claimant’s belief is deeply-held, it is not a core component of Christian faith.
In what the Daily Wail described as “a further blow to Christianity”, Judge Heather Williams QC, of the London South Employment Tribunal, said that Merton Council did not promise Mba that she would never have to work on Sundays when she interviewed for the job in 2007, but still reasonably accommodated her belief for two years – a belief which is not held by all Christians.
There was no express agreement ever arrived at by the parties that the claimant would never have to work on Sundays. On the contrary, she was contracted to work on Sundays.
Mba, who was born in Sierra Leone and moved to Britain when she was 21, expressed her “amazement” at the decision here:
I thought that this country was a Christian country and known for its welcome and hospitality to all people. I worked hard for years at my job, and to lose it because of intolerance towards my faith is shocking to me.
Losing the case was pretty much a foregone conclusion, given that Mba had the support of the CLC’s Director, Andrea Williams, who has a long history of failing to prove “persecution” in cases such as these. Here is a list of CLC cases.
For the umteenth time, the rancid Williams was forced to express “extreme disappointment” over the decision:
Celestina was let down by her employers, who failed to continue to accommodate her beliefs. She was an employee who wished to observe Sunday. Her employers forced her to choose between her job and her faith. This was unacceptable, and we are disappointed that the Judge did not agree with her.
She blathered on:
There needs to be a reasonable accommodation of the Christian faith across the public sphere, for the good of all. Pressure from employers against Christians expressing their faith is an increasingly a regular hallmark of what Baroness Warsi has described as our ‘deeply intolerant culture’.
In less than 20 years we have moved to a situation in this country where Sunday is hardly observed at all and, if you do, you find yourself pushed out.
Now, contrast the snivellings of Mba and Williams with a GENUINE case of Christian persecution – that of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor who was sentenced to death this week for apostasy, having converted from Islam to Christianity.
Hat tip: Birdshit’s Postman, BarrieJohn and M A Chohan (Iran report)
Please note: there may be a break in service starting soon as I am in the process of changing internet provider, and have been warned that I may be off-line for a period.
As a care worker, the job has a round the clock 7 day week requirement since the care of children for some reason does not stop on a Sunday. It hardly seems very decent of her (dare I say Christian) to see that by refusing to work Sundays, her co-workers had to work to cover her absences so the effect would be that, by indulging her, others had to do more of what she found wrong.
score for team sane
There needs to be a reasonable accommodation of the Christian faith across the public sphere, for the good of all.
When I first read that, I thought it could be implied as a threat. It is also worth noting that the Sabbath, which is what this is about, is actually the Saturday, but I’m sure you all know that anyway.
I’m sure that she’s happy for other people to work on a Sunday: care workers, tv companies, electricity companies, shop workers, water suppliers, newspaper workers, bus drivers etc. If you don’t want to work on a Sunday then get a different job.
I was going to post something to the effect that surely by now “persecuted” christians should have wised up to the fact that the CLC always loses, but now I think about it…
So kids in care can (magically) fend for themselves on Sundays while this deluded loon is off hymn-singing?
Mind you, if the CLC are serious about this case, and Carey & Co are determined to back them, it’s as good an excuse as any to close any social care facilities run by Christian organisations. They can’t hav it both ways, and I, for one, would feel a bit happier knowing society’s disadvantaged were being looked after by professionals instead of public money being given to superstitious halfwits to push their views on folk who cannot defend themsleves.
Surely, the pivotal fact here is that Sunday working was included in her contract. If you don’t want to work on a Sunday find a job where you don’t need to – it’s hardly rocket science!
Andrea Williams loses case: Weariless demoniacal lass
There needs to be a reasonable accommodation of the Christian faith across the public sphere, for the good of all.
That actually made me laugh.
It strikes me a better way of dealing with this would have been for a private arrangement amongst her colleagues to cover for her if possible, and if not for her to work those particular weekends, thereby avoiding the need to line the lawyers’ pockets. If not, she would have to work, it’s the nature of the job. I don’t see anywhere she claims to be ‘persecuted’, but has got it wrong in terms of her contract of employment. It is really a legal issue, not persecution but neither does she deserve the epithet ‘snivelling’, nor for that matter deluded loon or halfwit. It’s not as though she doesn’t do anything useful on Sundays or her free time “She said: “The activities I do on Sunday including teaching in the church, visiting people in hospitals and prisons is a part of worship…”.
The absence of a Sabbath/day of rest one day a week is hardly a blessing of secularisation, is it. Shopping and busy-ness 7 days a week without respite.
“If you don’t want to work on a Sunday find a job where you don’t need to – it’s hardly rocket science!” Barriejohn, there is the problem. I’m certain some of these religious idiots deliberately gain employment and accept an employment contract with the aim concocting a persecuted [insert irrational belief] victim. We’ve seen loads of examples of this before, including muslims who won’t handle alcohol or muslim taxi drivers who won’t carry guide dogs.
Strange, I would have thought her god would rather she was at work looking after vulnerable kids than mooning around a hall speaking in tongues (or as it is known in the vernacular, talking bollocks) and generally carrying on.
Still, no accounting for religion.
@Ken “She said: “The activities I do on Sunday including teaching in the church, visiting people in hospitals and prisons is a part of worship…”. Yes Ken, it is called proselytizing – something the religious think they have a right to do: shove their stupid beliefs onto anybody including the vulnerable in hospital who have no escape.
Well said, Angela! And I wonder whether she used the “opportunities” that “the Lord” gave her in her employment to “witness for him” to vulnerable children? She seems just the type who would. When I was a young Christian I was encouraged to enter the teaching profession for that very reason, and I know that many are in similar positions simply to “win souls for Christ” – though, like her, they labour under the delusion that they are doing good by it.
http://www.emmausbibleschooluk.co.uk/about/PrisonMinistry.htm
Stil think money, not faith, is the root of CLC cases. There’s a pattern – public sector employee almost past their sell-by date (i.e. about to retire or likely to be 1st in line at the next local authority cutback).If the case gets to court it’s bad publicity for the local authority, so many may prefer to settle out of court even though they’re absolutely right.
Classic ambulance chaser stuff – old coppers used to have a phrase for such pay-offs, think they called it ‘garden shed money’ or something like that – nice little supplement to your retirement package.
Makes me wonder (as they’ve obviously got the free publicity thing down pat, due to to their mates on the Mail etc.) are the court cases the tip of the iceberg, and do CLC and their ‘victims’ get a lot of cash settlements to just go away from public bodies who don’t need the grief of a court case, especially small ones for whom even the legal cost of a court case they’ll obviously win would be too much? They do seem to be choosing the ground well too – e.g. employment tribunals, where there’s an understandable culture of making sure a possibly abused worker gets a fair hearing – as by now I can’t imagine even some minor court with a massive backlog of genuinely heartrending cases would find time to play out such a sick joke, and the average judge would be roasting any barrister with the temerity to stand there and prosecute this guff.
Next up – Vegan sues for discrimination after being fired for refusing to handle meat products “Who’d have thought that working the counter at a butcher would mean having to do that?”
Those who perhaps understand little of the evangelical mindset could do worse than peruse Jeanette Winterson’s excellent biography, published last year, Why be happy when you could be normal? It’s much better than Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, but one can understand why she might not have wanted to bare her soul at that stage. It also has a title which ranks right up there with the best of them – something which her adopted mother actually said to her again, regarding her lesbianism. I knew women just like her!
@FlipC: I thought that there had been a case, but all that I could find was the following.
http://www.ashcraftandgerel.com/personal-injury-lawyers-blog/negligence/vegetarian-hindu-group-sues-restaurant-after-being-served-and-having-eaten-meat/
I get so cross at the sentence ‘this is a christian country’.It is when convenient, but why are they so sure in their own minds that it is so, do they know everyone in this country and how they think and how they vote.Yes I wonder if she does any shopping on Sundays?
@Ken
As I remember it, there was no campaign by any secularist society to have seven day opening. It was more that clamour by the public because of the ridiculous laws governing trading on Sunday which forced it and for the life of me, I still don’t see the reason why Sunday shopping hours are even now restricted.
And what she terms as useful on a Sunday aren’t necessarily the terms many others would use. Praying/preying on others who are often times at their most vulnerable isn’t what I’d call a charitable act.
That Williams woman is scary..she looks like a zombie axe wielding serial killer…..
Considering no-one actually knows the women in question, there seems to be an awful lot of knowledge as to what she does and her motivation for doing it. You don’t know she is shoving her stupid religous beliefs onto everybody, and if freedom of speech and to believe or not believe are worth having, she has just as much right to share her faith if appropriate as someone else has to argue against it. Angela K – how can you be so certain people deliberately get jobs in order to be fired and claim victim status, unless you have specific examples of this? I’ve certainly never known it. Despite the claims that atheists go on evidence, there seems to be little of it here to justify the claims and assumptions, but a tendency to believe the worst of her.
I think she got it wrong on this occasion, and was badly advised. Apart from that, I don’t know if she is a good, bad or indifferent person.
Having worked in the care profession, part my employment was to take “service users” to church, who requested it. Unfortunately, I found the church to be quite intolerant and the vicar and the organist made it quite apparent the person with learning difficulties wasn’t wanted. I’m sure this lady could have accommodated her beliefs, with like minded service users, but again its the lawyers who appear to have made financial gain. However, I congratulate Andrea on her successful fight against breast cancer, though I don’t accept her views. It’s a shame she is not vocal on issues of greed, intolerance, injustice and unfairness in our society.
But her former manager, John Deegan, testified that he did not know of any Muslim employee being given special treatment and also denied Mba even mentioning that it was difficult for her to work on Sundays because of her religion.
Yet they are still claiming that she was not granted rights which would have been granted to a Muslim employee:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/uk-christian-woman-denied-rights-given-to-a-muslim-over-work-days-70001/
@Ken. “how can you be so certain people deliberately get jobs in order to be fired and claim victim status, unless you have specific examples of this? I’ve certainly never known it”.
I can’t, but consider this: Why would a person accept a job that they know full well has demands that go against their beliefs and then try to claim religious privilege to escape certain duties? They are either very dim or mendacious. The law in these cases is applied correctly.
Angela K – I agree accepting a job the is incompatible with someone’s beliefs would be silly. In the case in question, it looks as though there was a workaround for this until management stepped in and insisted on working to contract. The employee rather naively thought offering to do extra duties at other times that would leave Sunday sacrosanct was reasonable, but clearly in this case is wasn’t seen that way by management. I wondered why this is being seen as an anti-christian bias by the CLC, and I can only think that insisting on working to contract when ways had to date been found to get round this could be interpreted as being anti-christian. She thought the change in the attitude of management was a defence in court, but the court could only look at the contract she had signed, which of course inevitably led to the result reported.
I feel sorry for her, as she clearly wants to keep a clear conscience but has been badly advised, her church imo should be setting her free from Sabbath observance, but I don’t think is shows management up in a very good light either, being inflexible to try to accommodate her personal circumstances and perhaps not spelling it out at the beginning that Sunday working was a requirement and she had no right to opt out of it, she could only ever hope for voluntary agreement with colleagues.
Incidentally, there was an article by the daily mail, on its web page, regarding a claim that Christian Concern was holding an Easter Conference to promote christian counselling as a cure for homosexuality. From my training as a teacher I do know that the brain is malleable and different connections are formed based on life choices and experiences. However, religious superstition of demon possession, self loathing and worthlessness have no place in counselling and I know Andrea is a lawyer, not a professional medical practitioner. I have met Christians who were suicidal because their faith conflicted with their feelings and seen the dangers christian meddling can cause.
While I completely agree that the case was daft and, happily, justice / reason prevailed, and while the writing style does make me laugh, I think it’s a shame the tone is so petty. Terms like ‘rancid’ and ‘blathered’ are over the top and do little for the credibility of the piece. It starts to sound like satire or, far worse, a fundie rant. Better to state the facts reasonably rather than emotively and retain the logical and moral high ground, no?
Thank you for your comment, Alice, but if you had taken the trouble to read the history of the Freethinker, this quote, from its founder, G W Foote would have leapt out at you;
The Freethinker is an anti-Christian organ, and must therefore be chiefly aggressive. It will wage relentless war against Superstition in general, and against Christian Superstition in particular. It will do its best to employ the resources of Science, Scholarship, Philosophy and Ethics against the claims of the Bible as a Divine Revelation; and it will not scruple to employ for the same purpose any weapons of ridicule or sarcasm that may be borrowed from the armoury of Common Sense.
Other secular journals over the years have adopted a far less confrontational style, believing that “being reasonable” was the way better way to confront religious loonies. All fell by the wayside; only the Freethinker, with its aggressive style, has managed to survive since its launch in 1881.
Point made.
BarryDuke: Aha! That explains it! I can’t find the history on this mobile version of the site; thanks for educating me. Now I can just enjoy the tone rather than worrying about it…
I’ll probably get eaten, but I agree with Alice. My understanding of freethinking is thinking out of the box, free from doctrines, superstition and sectarian thinking. However, science fact shows we are all part of the tree of life, we are all related to one another whatever race, creed, sexuality or difference of opinions. “I may not agree with you, but I defend your right to say it” seems an appropriate mantra. To evaluate all the arguments making an informed decision based on the available information is a central part of our democratic society. It is far more powerful to make the case using the professional tools of “Science, Scholarship, Philosophy and Ethics” than name calling. I know, one can get frustrated when healthy debate and proven facts are ignored by religious fundamentalists. However, the strength of a healthy society is that everyone and everything has value unlike the prescriptive judgemental tools of the religious.
Oh Alice – I was trying to stick up for you – pooh! Sorry Barry I agree with 95%
There needs to be a reasonable accommodation of the Christian faith across the public sphere,
“Reasonable accommodation” is taking a few religious holidays off per year or asking if you can work in the produce section rather than the deli since you eschew meat products. It’s not contracting to a specific schedule then demanding one of your agreed-upon days off every single week.
If you’re going to work in any medical, human services or related field you learn quickly that these are not a 9-5/M-F professions. You can’t expect that you can leave the nights and weekends to others because you have kids, church, hot dates, parties or whatever. It’s the type of work where you must put the people you serve first. Obviously self-centered people like Mba can’t grasp that simple concept.
“it is not a core component of Christian faith”
Actually, yes it is – just as going to mosque on Friday, and synagogue on Saturday.
Isn’t it time that HR people learn the idiosyncrasies of these unicorn people and inform them at the time of application. I.E. you are on duty 24/7 – this means that if we call while you are doing something else – no matter what – you have to come into the office.
No need to mention religion, no reason to make an atheist work more unsociable hours on the basis of her not believing in unicorns.
After all, nobody would give me Thursday afternoon off, just because, well let’s admit it ladies, Thor is the only really dishy god around.
‘…well let’s admit it ladies, Thor is the only really dishy god around.’
What about Adonis. Or Narcissus. Or me!
Great post thanks… I must mention though how I do feel duty bound and compelled but removed from the discussions contents since I myself am a reformed person from abrahamist practices. I express that there is an assertion that this requirement of a theist person per se leans itself to being tantamount to terrorism and negligence… I will post the reason as to why on http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ethical-debate-forum/104755279645688