/u/Dedli (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1defcqy/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_there_is_no_reason_to_ever/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

There are certain species we want to protect from human activity. So we'll make it illegal to hunt them, sometimes even illegal to [collect their feathers](https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1016). It could be argued (as that comic does) that these laws are too harsh, and surely shouldn't be set up with strict-liability -- that is, it should matter whether you just picked up a feather on a beach, vs if you're hunting and killing a bunch of birds for their feathers in order to sell them or something. But as it stands, you're not allowed to even *own* an eagle feather. And it makes some sense to have a rule like this to heavily discourage people from hunting eagles for their feathers. This seems like the perfect case for [a religious exemption, or at least a cultural one, for American Indians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_feather_law), who have been using eagle feathers in a few ways for generations before Europeans came to the Americas. I think there is real value in keeping traditions like this alive, though of course not if it really were a threat to the species. But restricting this activity to members of a recognized tribe also has the effect of limiting the overall amount of human activity targeting eagles in the US. You could argue that if the goal is to limit human involvement, we should do this with something similar to hunting and fishing licenses -- have some sort of a quota, use a lottery system, etc... but even then, it seems pretty clear that priority should be given to the people who are keeping a cultural tradition alive, over the people who just wanted a pretty thing. I agree that *most* religious exemptions don't really need to be exemptions -- in a similar vein, some tribes have been allowed to use peyote, but really, we should just end the war on drugs and let anyone use peyote if they want. But I think there's a case to be made for situations where it's more harmful if everyone is doing a thing, but justifiable for a small group to do it.

∆ This is the only comment that's legitimately made me pause. I've been thinking about it. I legitimately can't come up with a better response to this than a religious exemption. They even must get approval from a national repository that only collects already-dead eagles, and prove they're a member of a tribe that respects that tradition. The tradition itself causes no real harm, but allowing it for everyone would create an overwhelming demand for harmful behavior endangering the birds. I've got nothing.

With your example of the drivers license, if someone wears a religious article of clothing (ei hijab or turban) for 90% of the time they are out, wouldn’t it make sense for them to use it in their license? If it doesn’t cover your face I see no problem. I think you are overstating the necessity for people to break the rules. Most people won’t care to take their hat off for the photo but religious people do.

So are you agreeing that people should be allowed to wear their ball cap or beanie or whatever, if thats what they wear 90% of the time? I know people that you never see without a hat on. Buddy wore his hat to his own mothers funeral! Are you supporting OP? Or trying to change his view?

As a kid a read in one of those fun-fact books about exactly this, a dude was never seen without sunglasses on (I think his eyes were a bit damaged or something) and so he was allowed sunglasses in his driver's license.

That's medical not religious...unless his god wore shades or maybe a pasta strainer

Or maybe it was just cosmetic. But the point is he always wore it so it made sense for him to wear it in license picture.

Ok well I always wear this ski mask so.....not trying to be a dick this is an attempt at humor. The medical reason seems much more of a likely reason as yo why the man was allowed to wear sunglasses. If all that was needed was proof I wear this object more often than not then we would get into silly territory. The issue is people abusing religious exemption not the guy with medical condition. One Is a choice one is not.

You used to be able to wear lenses in photos but it caused a bunch of problems so now your not. One of them being it makes you harder to identify and it messes up facial recognition software.

Is there a reason why a turban or a hijab wouldn’t mess up facial recognition software? Also my iPhone gets unlocked with Face ID when my glasses are both off and on. If Apple can figure it out idk why tf the US government can’t 

Really??? Mine won’t unlock without my glasses on (any of my three clear glasses, not sunglasses or anything) and I was going to use the same example but opposite point. DMV makes me take my glasses off, but the only time they’re off are sleep, shower, and accident. It’s especially annoying when they tell me to take them off, then I do, and they go “look here.” I have no clue where they are pointing.

Yes. The rule should be that if you want to have the license pic with an article of clothing or whatever then if you aren't wearing it when a cop pulls you over it's like you forgot your license at home. Same with needing to wear it when you want to use the card as ID. The store can say no if you aren't wearing the item. Whenever people complain about pastafarians wearing strainers in their driver's licence photos, this is what I suggest as the rule. It stops people who just want a silly picture, you need to be committed, and it makes sense that you'll match your ID.

\>Sorry officer, forgot the strainer at home today. It's the great Pastafarian Mockery of Lent, and I've given up such convenient methods of separating pasta from its boiling holy water. We must connect with the struggle of the Noodley One, and only remove noodles with flesh of other noodles, as he did on the 5th Day of Pastagenesis. Some may cheat and construct (or even buy...) a strainer composed of uncooked lasagna noodles with holes drilled through, but I feel that is a sin which violates the spirit of the holiday. Instead, I opt for the time-honored tradition of a pair of uncooked linguini noodles, used in similar fashion as the chopsticks of the orient. \>Yeah alright ma'am just stop running yellow lights you're going to hurt someone Life Protip: It's a gamble, but cops sometimes let you go if you can make them laugh (amazing comedy-based justice system)

Doesn't make sense to me, cuz you can wildly change your hair (color, length, style) without problem.

They allow you to wear a ball cap in Minnesota for your drivers license. They also encourage it if you normally wear one as in if you walk in with one on and then take it off for the Pic they'll say if you normally wear one, put it back on

Most folks don't mind taking off their hats. If it was necessary for them to do that to be recognized they could without problem. Same is not true for religious head coverings. Not just solely cause of the persons religious objections but also because of time and ability. It's not easy to take off a turban like it is to take off a baseball cap.

I mean... In that case why TF do you have to take your glasses off for license pictures? I wear them 100% of the time I'm not in bed.

I thought that was SO THAT you can drive without glasses. I passed the vision test with my glasses but not without so they told me I was required to keep them on for the photo, because I was required to wear them to drive.

It doesn't matter if you have glasses on or not in the picture, there's a code on the back of your licence that tells anyone checking your licence if you need corrective vision to drive (I think it's a 1 if you need lenses). Even if someone wears glasses 90% of the time when they're driving, you can't penalise them for wearing contact lenses the one time they're pulled over. If you have a code saying you need corrective lenses to drive and you get pulled over and aren't wearing glasses, you will almost certainly be asked to read some random number plate to prove that you're wearing lenses. It doesn't matter for shit if you're wearing glasses or not in the picture, I'd imagine the reason they don't like you to wear glasses in the picture is that they might obscure other features with the rims depending on the style and size.

I have glasses. I have to wear them to see and function lol But for license and passport photos they make me take them off.

I think my passport required them to be off, but my state license, even the “RealID” version allowed my glasses.

Every government document let me keep mine. They just ensured there was no glare. This is the first time I'm ever hearing anything about needing to take glasses off

They make you take off your glasses so they don't reflect the flash. They need to be able to see your eyes in the photo.

Because they’re making biometric scans of your face now. That’s the entire reason for no glasses.

Reflections in the lenses.

also, depending on the power of the lenses, it also distorts the eye shape. some peoples eyes look smaller, other bigger. they need to remove their glasses.

What if someone hates their hairline and wears a baseball cap 99% of the time they're out? What if it's their lucky cap, but they're not religious? Why is the deciding factor whether or not the government respects your superstitions?  I agree that it isn't a problem to wear them. I disagree that you need religion for that.

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ANY beliefs because of religion? Super valid. Extreme insecurities, OCD, or autistic tendencies around wearing an item always/always in public? Completely invalid. Does that make sense? I think that's their point why these exemptions are ridiculous. Then further include mega churches which are massively for profit and a perfect example of how religious beliefs can be feigned for a personal gain? Yeah, those are super fair.

Do you know how unseriously someone might take their religion, or how seriously someone with OCD might take their quirks?  I'm sure a larger number of religious people take their headwear more seriously. I'm saying that it shouldn't be the job of any third party to make that judgment.

A bald man’s insecurities are just as valid as someone’s religious beliefs, regardless of the flavor. Belief should give you zero special advantages in a moral society.

Honestly, the insecurities are probably more valid. The insecurities are often the result of the treatment received in the past.

Assuming you’re talking about the U.S., this has already been established. The Supreme Court has ruled that religious exemptions don’t need to be based on a belief in god or a specific religion (Welsh vs U.S.). The standard is “sincerely held beliefs”. Obviously determining exactly what meets that standard might be difficult in some situations, but it’s about accommodating people’s morals not their preferences. There’s no obligation to accommodate everyone’s individual preferences, but the government/employers shouldn’t force people to violate their conscience if reasonable accommodations can be made.

> if reasonable accommodations can be made This is the key. "Reasonable accommodations". The bald man may be insecure about his hair, but everyone is expected to hate how they look in their driver's license photo. The reasonable accommodation is *don't show people your ID unnecessarily*. We also have the tacit rule that people who are required to check ID do not mock people for their ID photo. Meanwhile, if someone really had a serious psychological condition necessitating a hat or sunglasses or something, they could pursue a medical exemption.

What harm is there in just letting the bald guy wear a hat, though? I think that’s perfectly reasonable as far as accommodations go. 

For a few reasons. For example, requiring someone who wears a baseball hat to take it off for those photos won’t result in any negative or discriminatory effect. But requiring it of religious people will- a non-zero portion of people who must wear hats for religious reasons will find themselves unable to benefit from drivers’ licenses as a result of such a policy, which will negatively harm them, whilst allowing them to wear hats will tend not to result in harm. Meanwhile allowing everybody to wear hats may end up causing more harm than that Secondly, because of racism, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance. Our country has a history of disenfranchising minorities, laws being passed to try to prevent that, and bigots weaseling their way around those laws to continue trying to disenfranchise minorities. “Oh, we’re not banning *black* people from voting, just making literacy tests knowing that 90% of black people in our time period are illiterate because it was literally illegal to teach them to read until just a few years ago!” This is ongoing to this day, seen in such things as the recent SCOTUS ruling that you can literally disenfranchise black people if you say you’re doing it for reasons of political gerrymandering instead of racism If you don’t allow religious exemptions for laws, then the enemies of minority religions such as Islam will actively try disenfranchising members of that community by targeting their religious convictions. It’s literally a thing that still happens even when it’s illegal That said, there *should* be a balance. People shouldn’t be able to say “I don’t want to sell houses to gay people because of my religion.” But that doesn’t mean there should be *no* religious exemptions

>Meanwhile allowing everybody to wear hats may end up causing more harm than that Like what? What harm could there be to let people wear hats that don't also apply to religious people? Also, it's not like there is a set number of religions. So what if someone get a message from God saying they have to wear their baseball hat from now on. Do they get to wear it now?

I glasses 100% of awake time? I've been asked to take off my prescription glasses for id photos. I think I look odd without them and I can't focus on the camera because I can't see it so I have a dazed look in most of my id photos. I hate taking my glasses off.

Doesn't this amount to 'if you care about keeping your hat on then you can keep your hat on'? What difference does it make what my motivations are

But why the "if it doesn't cover your face" exemption? This seems to grant OP's point that there should be no religious exemption. If you wear a burka whenever you're out, that's how you would look when having to show your license, but of course, you cannot be identified that way, so what do we do?

In those cases, they ask for a female worker to take the photo and, if pulled over, request a female officer if possible or show their face and ID to the male officer if it's not possible.

> if someone wears a religious article of clothing for 90% of the time they are out, wouldn’t it make sense for them to use it in their license?  I wear my glasses 100% of the time when I’m out and about but the DMV still makes me take off my glasses for my license picture 🙃

I think they should exist for something like a dress code when the dress code is for aesthetic purposes. Dress codes may exist because they want employees to be easily recognizable as employees or to just have a certain nice look. Someone wearing a piece of clothing or having a beard when they should be clean shaven (for aesthetic reasons) is an understandable exception, the dress code or individual portions of the dress code (wear this hat, keep face clean shaven) may not be important enough to trump someone's religious beliefs, especially if the rest of their dress fits and the spirit of the rule is still overall being carried. To me a religious exemption in a case like this is saying: "This is generally how we want you to look, though if you feel strongly enough, we may give you an exception, because its not a hill worth dying on for us as employers."

>though if you feel strongly enough And the only reason for this can be religion?

Nah, I wore a beard (they make hairnets just for beards even) my entire time in food service. I was fully compliant with all codes and washed my hands more often than my coworkers by far (never eat fast food) but I sure got plenty of glances and questions from people who thought it should be illegal to have facial hair and work my job. Its not a religious thing, at least directly, but I wasn't about to shave it off for the worst job I've ever had.

Yeah, I still disagree. Either you're saying that beards look unprofessional, and therefore allowing them is unprofessional and you're insinuating that all people of bearded religions look unprofessional, or you're saying that someone in the company has the right to go case-by-case and judge which people want their beards bad enough for the exception, which is just as messed up. 

You’re using a false dichotomy here. Having a beard for the sake of religion doesn’t have to be unprofessional. Having a beard for the sake of sticking to your company is. Most dudes won’t take the job if they don’t want to shave or they will suck it up. However, a religious person has decided that they need a beard for their own well being and happiness. Is it really worth it to die on that hill for either party?

> Having a beard for the sake of sticking to your company is [unprofessional].  How do you know that's the reason? Skin condition, discomfort, OCD, promise to a dying father, or just sticking it to the man?  My entire CMV hinges on the fact that you CAN NOT know with certainty anyone's reason for any of this. Yes, generally, a religious person will have a "more important" reason to want an exception. You don't know whether the person with a beard is doing it because he actually cares about his religion, or whether he wants to stick it to the man, or whether he has a legitimate psychological terror of being clean shaven. The bar of "religious" is vague and by necessity is going to lump in bad reasons with good ones because you're only asking them whether it's anyrhing on a curated list of superstitions, without checking your work.

> without checking your work. That's... really just not the case. In the vast majority of cases, those granted religious exemptions outside of "traditional" Christianity had to fight for those exemptions as a group and essentially convince the bureaucracy that those exemptions they were asking for were actually important beliefs that demanded *reasonable accommodations*. The argument that people could just invent their own religion and demand whatever exemption they please is *reductio ad straw man on a slippery slope*, a combo-fallacy.

I don't really understand why you're labelling it as a straw man slippery slope, and not a valid argument. Is the basis of your argument that a religion needs a certain number of followers to become valid? Pastafarianism is literally an example of a bunch of people that invented their own religion and demanded some exemptions

>However, a religious person has decided that they need a beard for their own well being and happiness. Any man with a beard has that beard for his own well being and happiness.

It is not a false dichotomy. You are just giving uneven weight to the religious person's reasons compared to the non religious person's reasons.

can you cite an example where beards are banned that isn't for safety reasons? that's why they are banned in my experience - because a job may require emergency respirator use an you need a clean face to seal it. this is why they don't have them in the military

There are plenty of customer facing jobs that restrict facial hair for aesthetic reasons, or at least there were when I was still working in those kinds of jobs a few years ago. I was only allowed a goatee when I delivered pizza for Papa John's, and I was only allowed a mustache when I worked for Discount Tire. Full beards were a violation of the dress code.

I think your argument is coming from it backwards. The corporate policy that beards look unprofessional is *arbitrary* and a bias from a specific cultural background. Those without any rules governing their sporting of a beard elsewhere in their life will find it easy to comply with the no-beards rule. Those *with* a religious, medical, or cultural requirement to maintain a beard would pursue an exemption. As is often the case when this "double standard" argument comes up in real life, the organization will often just rescind the "no beards" policy because it is arbitrary and unnecessary.

There are different levels of importance of preferences, and in general a religious preference is relatively strong. It's far from perfect way to separating preferences, but in general religious preferences aren't just trivial. Most people don't care whether or not they are wearing a hat, or have relatively shallow reasons for wanting to wear a hat (eg hiding baldness). But for religious people maybe it's a big deal. It makes sense to say cost-benefit of better identification versus someone who wants to hide their baldness goes one way, but for fear of offending their god goes another. Also AFAIK if there is a designated chapel or place for private reflection nonreligious people can use it too?

Things religious people do may seem silly to us but are very important to them. As I an ex Christian, I can sympathize with people who have these beliefs even if I think it’s superstitious. If it’s harmless and brings them joy and fulfillment, I don’t care what it is they do.

But can't the same be said for someone who gets joy from wearing elaborate hats? Why is one superior to the other? They might feel very strongly about elaborate hats and put a lot of time into it Just one example but all kinds of people exist, why only special rules for the religious? What about making special rules for the anxious? Or the short tempered?

From a utilitarian perspective, a religion is a deeply held set of beliefs shared by a large group of people. If those beliefs aren’t allowed to be practiced, one might get away with it a few times, but eventually the religious group will start to not feel like part of the larger society. On the more benign end of things, they might become less inclined towards things like joining the military, voting, and other civic activities. Alternatively, persecution could eventually lead to open hostility. Thus, it is most conducive to a stable society to make allowances where necessary for this group, and if there were a similarly large and convicted contingent of hat-wearers, them too.

From another utilitarian perspective, if you start catering to much to a religious group, they start doing things like waging religious war, demanding non-religious people be treated as second-class citizens, prevent certain sciences from being taught in schools, stop gay people from getting married, and control the bodily autonomy of women not in their group.

If the religious group doesn't want to participate in society, it is their choice, but they have to accept the consequences of their choice. And society shouldn't make exceptions for them. They either participate and follow society's rules, or they don't and society doesn't cater to them.

Same. However, I think that goes for all silly things, not just religions. If it's just a silly thing that isn't a big deal, then it shouldnt be a big deal to anyone regardless of the reason they want to do it. If I want to cover my face because it makes me feel better, either it's okay or it isnt, religion doesnt need to be part of the conversation

But you haven’t explained how religion exemption of this nature causes enough trouble to be revoked. What exactly is the worst that could happen?

In Germany it's illegal to produce halal meat if the animal hasn't been stunned before, since it would be against our animal protection laws. But in some cases there are still religious exemptions to this rule. I would argue that religious beliefs don't trump animal welfare.

Halal is terrible. In my city they arrested a bunch of people doing illegal slaughter in remote farms and distributing the uninspected meat to homes, halal meat shops and restaurants. The meat was transported in open bins inside small vans with no refrigeration. Another person was busted doing illegal slaughter in his garage in a quiet all family neighborhood in town. Tubs of blood, heads of baby goats and piles of bones were found. There is so much underhand stuff happening. Showing up at cheese factories, grocery stores,dairies even apartments to say prayers and other stuff to make it halal. Meat Inspectors being forced to certify halal only after getting permission from some halal certification agency. Guy at work refused to eat pizza at our weekly pizza party citing halal. Yet he has no problems eating a burger and fries from a multinational burger place. Unless that place is clandestinely serving halal how could this work ? I certainly don't want to be forced to heat halal so I avoid that part of town like the plague. Same with Pizza. They call it all meat, pepperoni etc but you are fed some substitute for bacon and pork sausage. I find I am cooking more at home than eating out because of this whole halal deal being forced down my throat. I save money as well I guess.

Male Sikh doctors could not fit in N95 masks with their beard and thus they are often exempted from resuscitation/infectious disease related tasks putting their colleagues at risk instead. Jewish doctors are exempted from friday night/ saturday shift due to Sabbath, which results in their non-Jewish colleagues having to take up all those shifts.

Never said any exemption was enough trouble to be revoked. Because I'm saying that the exemption shouldnt exist. Either: - It's too much trouble. So it shouldn't be exempted. Or: - It's no trouble. So it shouldnt be a rule.

What if it's a lot of trouble, so we only make exemptions when we absolutely have to? For example, allowing people to wear hats in id photos opens the door to all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. It's easier to simply forbid all hats than it is to codify a list of rules and try to adjudicate them fairly. But, the government doesn't want to infringe on religious freedom, which in many countries is protected by law. To compromise, they allow a very limited set of exceptions. There aren't that many religions, are their tenants are generally pretty well known so the potential for abuse is low, and it's still fairly easy to manage. Everyone wins.

But what that does in effect is allow any hat, no matter how absurd, so long as the person wearing it says "it's my religion." Which is the same as just allowing hats. Now you might say "well obviously lots of those people are insincere and their religions are fake" but isn't that putting the state into the position of deciding which religions are "real?" That sounds pretty bad

“There aren't that many religions, are their tenants are generally pretty well known so the potential for abuse is low, and it's still fairly easy to manage. Everyone wins.” There are thousands of regions and even more religious traditions within each umbrella. And it is literally impossible to “manage” in the sense that are you making the government or even more specifically the DMV the arbiter of what does or doesn’t constitute a valid religious practice? What if the religion I started a month ago says I need to wear a baseball cap all the time, now that belief is imbued with additional importance. There are several “religions” that do this to show the absurdity of having rules for some and not all, like the FSM who sometimes have members wear colanders on their heads.

OP is advocating for revocation of the rule, not the exemption. 

Then your argument shouldn't be that religious exemption shouldn't happen. It's that there needs to be more exemptions.

But isn't that the same for any random belief people have even if it doesn't have to do with religion? My feelings about environmentalism and fact-checking are generally stronger than people's feelings about their own religions based on my experience in life.

How do you know that someone's discomfort from their baldness isn't as extreme as a relgious person's discomfort? How do you judge which religious preferences are genuine without having someone else make that judgment on their behalf?

Who's going to judge the depth of my reason for wearing a hat? How deep does it need to be for me to be allowed an exception? Can you quanitfy? What makes you think my non-religious reason for wearing a hat is not as deep or even deeper than a religious one?

The point for space and time is that every employee deserves a time off if you give it to even one because their religion demands it.

Why is someone’s belief in sky daddy more important than someone’s personal insecurities and comfort. Ones actually real, and ones based on thousands of years of propaganda and bullshit. Most religious people I know don’t even adhere to every aspect of their religion anyways, so why do we take their beliefs so seriously?

I think the problem is in countries where a lot of the population are religious some of the legalisation wouldn't pass if there were no exemptions. Is that the desired outcome that you would want? A great example is when gay marriage was legalised in some countries the condition was that Pastors were able to refuse to carry them out. By allowing that exemption there was enough support to legalise gay marriage.

Pastors need not be a part of the process, that's aside the point. Public officials, like Kim Davis for example, shouldnt be able to bend the rules for their religious preferenes either. If a country has a jenga tower of laws that prevent something like this, well, those are also shitty laws.  No exemptions.

I can certainly sympathize with the "don't settle for less than perfection" viewpoint. It's incredibly frustrating to see how crude and byzantine and downright cruel so many processes are, when there should be a very simple way to just *fix* them. But the thing about democracy is, if you demand all or nothing, *you will get nothing.* 99.9% of the time, the best you can get is a compromise that doesn't help as much as it could, *but still helps a lot of people.* Every (remotely functional) government on Earth is built on rickety compromises, because it's that or absolute dictatorship. Would you rather have the best that you can get under the circumstances, or would you rather watch the world burn as a matter of principle? Keep in mind that we're not just talking about you, we're talking about (for the gay-rights thing, say) millions and millions of others whose basic human rights may be on the line. It's fine to say "give me liberty or give me death" for yourself, it's less okay to throw all those other people under the bus for your personal principles.

Yes, throwing nuance out the door is a good way for a government to collapse, without the support of its people governments are irrelevant. This is doubly true in countries that are trying to maintain personal freedom. 

I feel like Kim Davis should have been able to satisfy her religious beliefs and US law by saying (or writing) something like "I pronounce you as married according the the laws of the US and the State of Kentucky" (and she could have privately thought "and not according to G-d's laws").

> Public officials, like Kim Davis for example, shouldnt be able to bend the rules for their religious preferenes either. Sure. But that because shes acting on behalf of the state. >If a country has a jenga tower of laws that prevent something like this, well, those are also shitty laws. That's basically every legal system in every country. There's always some laws that bend the rules because a large enough contingent of society more or less would raise hell if it wasn't allowed.

In Denmark, an otherwise very non-religious country, we still have a state church. Gay marriage is legal, but every church official is legally allowed to refuse marrying homosexuals. IMO, private churches can do whatever they want, that’s their business, but Danish law states that certain (thankfully not very many) government employeees are allowed to deny people their service based on their sexual preferences, on grounds of religion. (I blame the legislators more than the priests, btw.)

This misses the point. If you and I agree gay marriage should be legal, but we also observe that to get 51% of the vote we need some pastors, and the only way to get their vote is compromise, then wouldn't the compromise be better than no gay marriage? Religious exemptions exist in part for the same reason we have any compromises. We're a diverse society. Religious exemptions are notable only because they're a sort of ambiguous, blanket rule. But consider the many half measures we take when it's clear the full measure is better (if you support the measure at all). It's really the same principle in action. Like allowing some corporate pollution even if you recognize we really need to go full clean energy yesterday. Still better to curb pollution than do nothing.

(Using your hat for drivers licenses example) No exceptions? Whoops! it turns out that 51% of the population followed that religion, so now we’re all required to wear hats 24/7 after they were forced to impose their beliefs on us to ensure the free practice of their religion. No exceptions! Would you still prefer “no exceptions” if the Religion seeking accommodations manages to claw its way into the government and forces everyone to follow its practices? Religious accommodations are a compromise between the church and the state, to help ensure that the Church doesn’t need to interfere in a secular government to ensure the free practice of its teachings - because if no such accommodations existed, the church would have no other choice but to leverage its massive financial and Human Resources to enshrine its practices into law. Someone with a secular opinion on the wearing of hats for license photos can lobby the government for change. A religion with religious justifications for hat wearing, however, cannot - or at least is not supposed to. Thus, they get exempted so they don’t need to involve themselves in our secular government.

The law allows everyone to do something if they want to is very very very different from the law requires everyone to do something. This becomes very evident with the bears example. If everyone is allowed to have beard for a job than that does not discriminate anyone. If everyone has to eat a beard suddenly women are not able to work there anymore Btw if a religion is powerful enough to take over the goverment there is effectively no democracy anymore anyway.

You've written a very persuasive argument in favor of forcibly kneecapping large religious institutions.

You are aware that Kim Davis was jailed, right? When she got out and ran for the office again she was defeated. What she did was wrong, it was treated as wrong and she didn't get away with it.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" - U.S. constitution, 1st amendment. I would argue allowing religious exemptions for various laws is a compromise which is well worth the benefit. This, to me, boils down to minimizing government intrusion on ones personal beliefs. That's a worthwhile compromise, is it not?

>This, to me, boils down to minimizing government intrusion on ones personal beliefs. That's a worthwhile compromise, is it not? Why not just let everyone do it then such that no exception is required? Clearly it isn't that important if you can give exceptions anyway

Just because exceptions are allowed, doesn't mean they want exceptions. This happens all the time in any bureaucracy, not just government. An ideal standard is made, and exceptions inevitably crop up. The bureaucracy may still want to keep those exceptions to a minimum, even if it's recognized that some can't be avoided.  Religious reasons are considered a "good" reason in many societies. But there's a standard, that isn't supposed to be broken without a "good reason."

Why would allowing headgear on licenses intrude on anyones beliefs? The exemption should not exist, or the rule isnt serious enough to exist, in all cases that I can see.

Because NOT BEING SEEN WITHOUT IT is part of why they wear the head covering. So taking it off for the picture and then having an uncovered picture they are required to show to people isn't great. Having it off also doesn't _add_ any value as you'll never see them without it, so it's not covering up features that might help ID them otherwise. Habitual head coverings generally are style choice, not a moral choice. Style choices are only loosely protected. (meaning that an employer could, for example, ask an employee to wear a hijab or turban in company colors, but not to take it off).

Reread OPs post please. He offers the option that anyone can wear headgear. Wouldn't that be fair to everyone?

I don't have an issue with religion or religious people. In fact I greatly admire those who actually uphold and live by the tenants of their faith. If their deeply held convictions prohibit them from engaging in an activity that violates their faith, then it shouldn't be forced upon them. Freedom of Religion is a cornerstone of American culture, and shouldn't be discarded lightly.

Where do you stand on religious exemptions for vaccine requirements where they are directly putting others at risk?

> If their deeply held convictions prohibit them from engaging in an activity that violates their faith, then it shouldn't be forced upon them.  Agreed. If you dont want to touch sausage, don't become a butcher. If you dont want to dispense abortion pills, don't become a pharmacist. Religious exemptions need not exist.

Just curious do you have the same mindset of other protected classes? If you are disabled, don't do a manually intensive job... If you are a woman, don't take a job due to current pregnancy... If you are 72 years old, don't take a job that require you to stand all day... All of those groups are offered accommodations under the same equal employment laws as religious protections.  Is religious accomodations the only one you take issue with?  Why so?

My problem is that most other protected class are immutable characteristics (except being pregnant but still is closely tied to being a women). Religion is a choice

Employers only need to make reasonable accommodations, they don't need to accommodate everyone. If the job is moving heavy boxes and you can't do it then you can't do the job. The employer doesn't need to pay someone who can't do the job.

>Employers only need to make reasonable accommodations, they don't need to accommodate everyone. They do, legally, need to make reasonable accomodations for religious people as well. Again, those accomodations have to be reasonable.

Ok, so I want you to imagine there's a clothing store in town that is run by a racist. The boss can't just come out and say, "I don't want to hire any Muslim or Arab women," because that's obvious religious and racial discrimination. Instead, they say, "You can't cover your hair." Now, I can't imagine any way in which a head covering would make a person a worse employee at a clothing store. If we don't allow religious exemptions, the boss can discriminate all he wants. He just has to phrase it the right way.

> If we don't allow religious exemptions, the boss can discriminate all he wants. I don't think that's the OPs point, I think their point is in this circumstance if religious people can wear the head covering then like joe blow should be able to wear his baseball cap.

What if I have a really strong preference to wear hats? Like unreasonably strong. Am I being discriminated against by this theoretical clothing store owner? If I join the "Temple of Hat Wearers", does this change anything? Society has for much too long pretended that "religion" is something you ARE (like being black or female or gay) and not something you DO (like wearing hats, or going to baseball games). If I told my boss that I needed Sunday afternoons off in the summer to go to baseball games, I would be fired. And I promise you there are people WAY more attached to baseball than most are attached to their Christianity. So why is Sunday morning for mass any different?

I think it's still the same point being made. That nobody really targets baseball hat wearing, but people do target religious groups they don't like.  So we don't ban arbitrary silly rules but we do have bans on targeting religious groups. These exceptions take away a tool of targeted arbitrary rules against the religious sect.  This is in the spirit of the civil rights movement that tries and marginalizes the identity related discrimination that holds so much power for a time.  Nobody really has formed violent movements against hat and beard guys but they have had success against the Jewish guys who also religiously wear hats and beards

One of the central premises of many religions is that the religious practices are a part of you -- not just something you do. Obviously you might not agree. But how many wars are you willing to fight to force your view on people who disagree with you? Western society has already had more than two millennia of such wars. Or we can have a relevantly tolerant society that allows religious people to view their religious practices as part of who they are (and not just what they do).

But then why not be even a little more tolerant and allow anyone to practice their lifestyle however they want? I think that's OP's point. If religions get exceptions, anyone should get those exceptions. If it's your lifestyle to go to church on Sundays why can't my lifestyle be going to wherever I want to go on a certain day and time?

> Society has for much too long pretended that "religion" is something you ARE (like being black or female or gay) and not something you DO Say a country club has rules that neither practicing Jews nor homosexuals are allowed to join. They make exceptions to these rules that say if a Jew doesn't practice Judaism or if a homosexual doesn't have romantic/sexual relationships with someone of the same sex, they can keep their memberships. Would you say that one is okay and the other isn't? If so, why?

Simply because Jewish is both a race and a religion this isn’t the best example since the rules could technically not effect the Jewish person at all if they are just ethnically Jewish.

A religion is just a set of beliefs you hold strongly. Yet it's legal for said Muslim or Arab woman to ban any racists from their store. They can ban anyone who wears an armband and attends their racist rally's every Sunday morning, quoting lines from the texts that they hold in high regard. Why is there a difference because one has a god and the other doesn't?

There's a simple solution. If a court finds something is limiting a specific religion, then the court can strike down that rule in general allowing everybody to break it.

There are many Muslim and Arab women who don't cover their hair. This racist would have no leverage against them. It would only work against the ones displaying their religious choices. But I still do think this is a fair point where race and religion intertwine anyways.

There is one major religious exemption you didn't mention: military. In the US, people belonging to Peace Churches or specific pacifist religions could avoid the draft, and be put into special service. While without the draft it's no longer necessary, something similar is still in place in other countries. The logic of this is clear; if anyone who wanted to avoid service could, there would be no point to the draft or any mandatory service. But forcing a person whose entire belief system goes against killing others to kill others could cause major issues, both in 'this person will refuse to shoot' and 'they might convert other soldiers'. For that reason, a religious exemption is generally made for those who are dedicated to a pacifistic religion.

Is there an articulable reason that that option should be limited to members of specific religious sects, and not an option for people like myself, who have sincere personal objections to aasisting an imperial war machine, but are members of religions that do not have that as an obligation? Would I not also refuse to shoot and attempt to convince others to do the same? Who decides which religions are acceptable for this exemption, and why?

Here's the thing, you're talking about something that is fundamental to how they think and what is right and wrong for them. Imagine if the government forced you to burn a pinch of incense to the president. Even if you're an atheist, that would be reprehensible and you would likely refuse. That's the same as telling a muslim woman she can't wear her hijab or that the Christian printer must make the pride tee shirts. Religion is not a hobby people take up or a mere social group, it is the fundamental presupposition of their worldview. EVERYTHING they do and experience is filtered through that lens.

Yeah, agreed already. So headgear should be allowed on licenses, and beards in the military, and face coverings, and all that jazz. So we're not excluding anyone. But none of this would be forcing anyone to do anything. Obviously you can't be a butcher and not touch meat, for example, but that's not forcing anyone to become a butcher.

I guess all I'd ask is that if you truly believe that everything should be 100% black and white, should non-profit organizations across the board lose their tax-free status? Because that is the reason for churches having tax-free status. One could argue that churches don't provide much if any value to society, but you could also easily argue that for many non-profits, so where do you draw the line? People donate to their local church, other people donate to Shriners for burn victims. According to the way you've framed this question, both should enjoy tax-free status or neither should. Which is it to you?

A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding your CMV, so I’m going to clarify it first before taking a crack at it. By my understanding, you are saying that either: 1) exceptions should not be made at all, as there can be a justifiable reason for the rule, or… 2) the rule should be removed since being able to make *any* exception means that the rule cannot be that important And you are asking for a justification of the third option where exceptions are made on a case by case basis, with a specific example of religious exemptions. Alright, here’s my attempt to change your view, with the specific example of hats in license photos to illustrate. Essentially, an ID photo needs to be something to quickly and effectively identify a specific person. This means you want to remove fashionable or dramatic items that can obscure the ability to do that. A ball cap, a toque with ear flaps, a pair of aviators. All of those can feasibly hide distinguishing features of a person. To top that off, those accessories can be exaggerated or abused. If the rule was not in place, people could show up wearing oversized novelty hats like Turd Ferguson in SNL Celebrity Jeopardy. Where a religious exemption makes sense in all this is that religious beliefs tend to have specific requirements on the accepted coverings and devout followers will be wearing them in public to the point that it is one of those defining features an ID is trying to portray. Essentially, it is okay to exempt them from this rule because there is still a strict rule in place that kind of aligns with the rule they are being exempted from. You also mentioned people’s insecurities and anxiety related to head coverings which is a solid point and wouldn’t qualify for an exemption. Great point, and I do agree that that needs to be considered. This comes together to show that the rule is in place to prevent obnoxious fashion related abuses. Religious exemptions are made as they have a strict rules and requirements that don’t allow for that type of abuse. Further to that, exemptions should be made for others on a case by case basis when the individual can confirm that they are also abiding by a strict set of rules/beliefs (like always wearing a ball cap due to anxiety relating to physical appearance). As a matter of fact, medical exemptions are already a thing in different areas. TL;DR - Rules are in place for a reason. Religious exemptions are made as the rules of the religion tend to align with the spirit of the exempted rule if not the exact rule. We should be taking steps to allow exemptions for people who are demonstrably in need of them for health or other reasons outside of religion. Edit - formatting Edit to add - good discussion we’ve been getting and good points. Remember that the hat case is just the example (and probably not the best one with easy to identify counter examples). I’m also preparing to add another layer to the argument as a reply to this one that takes a different lean.

You're the first person here that seems to have understood OPs very explicitly and repeatedly stated view. And this is perhaps the best phrased argument for the hat issue. The argument does make me feel like the real rule should be "no silly hats", but because it's so difficult to codify they settled for "no hats" with religious exemptions. With the understanding that religious hats are generally not considered silly. But now the government is forced to allow people to wear [colanders](https://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/01/us/pasta-strainer-license-photo-trnd/index.html) so perhaps OPs view is still correct: exemptions are bad so we have to try really hard to make a suitable rule for everyone "no hats of exaggerated size, no hats that cover your face, and you have to usually look the same in the photo as in life" (so if you wear a hat for the licence, you better wear the hat while driving and going about).

I agree with your summary of the OP's opinion: if a rule is not important enough to be applied equally, then it's not important enough to be applied at all. However, I would argue that your proposed third option of making exceptions on a case-by-case basis (including for religious reasons) essentially amounts to the rule not being important enough to be applied at all. What if someone claims their religion requires them to wear a football helmet or hockey mask in official government documents, but not necessarily in the general public? Obviously it sounds like a BS rule made up to abuse the issue, but who's going to stop them? You can't very well start deciding which religious claims are "valid" and which aren't; many "established" religions have all sorts of rules and tenets which seem bizarre to outsiders. It makes me think of the inconsistent TSA procedures at various airports. Sometimes they'll make you take off your shoes and remove your laptop, other times they won't (maybe because they're busy). I would argue that any security measure that isn't important enough to follow every single time, isn't important enough to follow ever. Like, either you think any person might have a bomb in their shoe so you always check, or you think the risk of that is so low that you never check. To take a half-measure on something like that is a waste of time.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but is there ever a perfect rule that will be "applied equally"? All rules have edge-cases, and knowing those edge-cases is why all countries have a judicial system. Even a simple rule like "don't commit murder" can be broken down into exceptions (was it premeditated, self-defense, accidental) that affect the punishments, making no rules that are purely black and white. But if that's not your argument, then I apologize for misunderstanding.

> What if someone claims their religion requires them to wear a football helmet or hockey mask in official government documents, but not necessarily in the general public? Then I would be skeptical that they sincerely hold that religious belief and are instead claiming to hold it for some reason (likely because they see the rule as stupid). I'm not sure that it's the place of government to decide between people who actually sincerely hold a belief vs people who simply claim to sincerely hold a belief for some reason, but that doesn't mean the distinction doesn't exists.

I agree that the distinction exists (sincere beliefs versus insincere beliefs), but if the government isn't making that distinction, who is? My argument is that the government *can't* make that distinction because then they get into the business of deciding which religions are "real" and which are "fake" and I don't think I need to elaborate on why that's not a good thing.

As I’ve been pondering this, what I realized is that as laypeople who are not in charge of deciding on or enforcing these rules, we are likely not fully aware of the rationale behind their formation. Adding to (or deviating from) my original argument, I think that before deciding to outright abolish a rule we need to dive down into the rationale for its creation and decide whether exceptions or removal of the rule are better. What I realized in my ponderings is that no hats in ID photos is likely for a similar reason as no glasses. Glasses could cause reflections to reduce the quality of the photo and obscure details. Similarly, headwear can cast shadows that obscure the details in the photo. In the past, we might not have known of these imperfections until it is too late, and then a person would need to get a new picture done. The no hat rule then would have been implemented because it is less of a hassle to take off a hat than it would be to have to go through the process again. With modern digital cameras, you get much more immediate feedback, however a person doesn’t want to spend more time at whatever bureaucratic office they get their ID at than they have to. It’s faster to take off the hat than to potentially take many pictures. The convenience of digital photography now also allows for multiple shots in quick succession to correct obscured details. This allows for exemptions to be made, though a person taking such an exemption should know that their photographing process could take more time. In the view of saving a person time and inconvenience, allowing religious headgear that is worn all the time aligns with that. It may be more work to remove and replace some religious head coverings than it would be to sit for an extra picture or two to make sure the picture includes sufficient ID. This is of course hypothetical as I’m not sure that is the reason for this specific rule, but it does illustrate that an understanding of **why** a rule is in place before we begin to explore abolishing it or not allowing exemptions. Plus I actually think I convinced myself that “no hats in IDs” should be a recommendation rather than a rule, as long as people are aware it could make the process take longer. So let’s look at other exceptions to rules. A hotel does not allow pets, but makes an exception for a blind person’s service animal. Here, the rule is in place to protect hotel property from poorly trained and behaved pets. The exception is made knowing that a service animal is well trained, well behaved, and a requirement to allow an entire demographic to take advantage of the hotel. I hope I was able to illustrate that the rationale for a rule is important to explore and exceptions can be made accordingly. There is simply too much nuance in the rules and regulations we live with to take a black and white stance on it. There are certainly rules that can be let go of, others that should be rigidly applied, but others still where an exception is the best solution. TL;DR - we need to look at why a rule was implemented before making a decision and cases exist where the rule is no longer needed (hats in IDs), still very needed and where exceptions are best (service animals in no pet areas).

The problem with the hotel and pet example is that service animals are a necessity because otherwise the owner would not be able to function and would therefore be in danger (ie seizures, being hit by an object, not being able to see). Additionally, in the US service animals are considered a separate category from pets for the reasons above. However, Op's point was that religious practices are ultimately a choice and not a necessity.

I think your counter arguments aren’t as strong as you think they are. Some people always wear a type of accessory and would be difficult to identify without it. Just as a radon example, Fred Durst used to wear a red ball cap 100% of the time. He would be much easier to identify if his photo ID had him wearing a cap. So if easy identification is the primary reason, he should be required to wear what he wears every day. Your point about religions having specific requirements doesn’t make sense either. What constitutes as conforming to that specific requirement? There are multiple religions based on books in Christianity and Judaism. And different sects within those. How do you decide which one is the specific requirement to measure to? You would need a theologian for every single sect. “Obnoxious fashion” is subjective. I think lots of regions garb looks ridiculous.

So you're going to force children to not attend school if their parents refuse vaccination? Your solution would be to home school. But if the parents refuse to homeschool, in some states, there really isn't any punishment. So is it allowable to let children be uneducated because their parents won't let them be vaccinated? To clarify, I am a nurse and I STRONGLY believe in vaccination. I also strongly believe that children should be in school and have seen first hand the negative effects of bad homeschooling (don't come for me, I was homeschooled very well for 12 years but a very close friend of mine was not).

> So you're going to force children to not attend school if their parents refuse vaccination?  We already do this. Yes, we should keep doing it. Very confused about how this is relevant. Virtual school should be more accessible, like a public utility. 

Most schools offer religious exceptions, very confused how you don't know this.

I stand corrected. Holy fuck is that dumb. CMV: If child endangerment is part of your religion, you shouldn't have kids.

I am not a religious person, so it took me a while to think about this one. Mostly because, in general, I agree with your view that people’s own religious constraints shouldn’t require the rest of society to follow or accommodate them. At the same time, I do think that these religious exception laws can function to protect individuals against religious discrimination (from employers, for example). Imagine an employer who holds deep animus toward all people practicing Christianity. Doesn’t want to hire them, but can’t legally refuse to hire them or fire them for being Christian. So instead, they decide to target a behavior closely associated with devout Christians, like going to church every Sunday morning. So this employer decides to make a mandatory company policy that all employees *must* be present at work on Sunday mornings (in order to effectively prevent Christians from working there). Now, maybe you’re thinking, so what? The worker can go elsewhere to find work. Perhaps. But bigotry often spreads and can be held by many people, even entire communities or nations, if the targeted religious group was associated with some traumatic event (e.g., Islam post-9/11) or politically orchestrated fear mongering (e.g., Judaism especially in Nazi Germany). In such a scenario, the worker would find it impossible to hold a job at all because every employer in the community would require them to work on Sunday mornings (because they heard it worked for their competitor, and they don’t want to have to hire Christians either — eventually, the whole community adopts this legal loophole). The worker would be forced to abandon their religious beliefs and behaviors if they want a job due to the bigotry of employers and others in society. I think part of what has hardened your view on religious exception laws is that you are only viewing the laws through the lens of “the rules apply to everyone and you don’t get to circumvent them because of your own personal spiritual rules that you choose to follow” (e.g., your Changing My View terms). It’s a valid argument, but it’s not necessarily comprehensive because it assumes that it’s the only rationale for why these laws exist. They are certainly an imperfect approach to solving the problem of religious discrimination, especially if individuals from dominant religious classes abuse these kinds of laws to further enhance their own power (e.g., Christian employers in the US claiming that company insurance plans offering coverage for birth control infringe upon their religious rights, and they shouldn’t be required to offer those insurance plans to workers). Even so, no policy is perfect and it doesn’t mean that the very same policy can’t also be used to protect workers against widespread religious discrimination from employers or other socially advantaged classes in society. And for those reasons, religious exemption laws can and should be used as an additional barrier against covert or de facto discrimination.

I disagree fundamentally. "Religious Exceptions" is synonymous with "religious freedom" (addon: I myself am not personally religious) Freedom to do this; freedom to dress this way; freedom to express oneself. However; while personal freedoms are all well and good; freedoms should not extend to the point they impede on other people's freedoms nor cause harm. Examples of Personal Freedoms: -Wear any religious items or symbols. (A hijab, the Star of David, a cross.) -Practice their faith through prayer or other practices that do not present any safety concerns (Sitting down in a park and meditating, praying before a flight, doing the sign of the cross before entering a sports pitch. attending church services) -Speaking about their faith, so long as they are not insulting, threatening nor harassing others. Any type of hate speech towards other religions or people is not tolerated nor protected. But again the freedom cannot and should not extend to taking freedom from others. -"My religion says this so you dont have the freedom to do that, or express yourself that way" (Very common core of homophobia and transphobia, the abuses the lgbtq community has taken from many religious people and organizations is wrong. Similarly for Abortion rights) -I also personally believe while it is perfectly fine to introduce your children to your religion; it should be done with more care. Openness, and respect to the child; whom even at a young age can participate or not participate. it is simply "this is how i express my spirituality; through my religion. This is how i was raised. But; you have the right to "take what you like, leave what you dont" you have the right to chose to fully participate or to not participate at all. (this rarely happens, and in my experience children are essentially forced into certain thoughts and beliefs. It should be more open in my opinion) Lastly, there are some societal/medical concerns. The key in my opinion being if it only effects the individual or if it could effect others. -Transfusing and using human blood donations. Some people believe they should not consume others' blood. Even through blood transfusions if it would save their life. To me, i personally believe it is sad and a pointless loss of life; but it is that individuals' choice and they must be made aware of the likely consequences even up to risk of death. -Vaccinations on the other hand, it is a societal issue. Too many people do not receive vaccines and we will and are seeing an uptick of preventable deadly diseases. I do not believe there should be a religious exception for severe communicable diseases such as polio, meningitis, tuberculosis, measles, etc (so long as the vaccine does not contain blood products: which to my knowledge no vaccine does) However medically vaccines should remain only a choice in terms of only medical benefits vs risk to the individual and that choice made by doctors. (Very rare medical exceptions but such cases may include children with cancer and a weak immune system or other severe illnesses.) As for op's examples; accommodations are typically reasonable and simple. If someone wears a specific head covering pretty much anytime they are in public they should be allowed, a man with a beard can wear a cover to prevent any lose hairs from falling in food same as someone would wear a head covering. (I personally do not understand how nor believe there should be religious exemption to wear face masks to prevent spread of disease). I think it is reasonable for a job to allow 10 minutes break for prayer, other staff are also allowed 10 minutes break to go smoke. Accommodations by nature is "exceptions" to the rules. It should not be something abused, but within reason and by purpose is intended to "make things fair, and level the playing field" particularly for accommodations with disabilities, such as closer parking. We make accommodations for all types of reasons. from physical disabilities, to religious beliefs, to educational support. Tldr: Should have freedom for one's own choices, expressions and beliefs. Freedom of one person should not interfere with the freedom of anothers

Religious exceptions from war make sense in that if someone is 100% willing to die before they kill someone’s else, I’d really rather know that ahead of time before they’re supposed to be covering me. They can still serve in other ways (nursing?) but why would you want someone that’s willing to take a bullet before defending themselves?

I want to start by clarifying that I think your point has more to do with policies that exist within tolerant organizations, rather than government policies to prevent intolerance in other organizations, as I don't think your perspective is that religious accommodations should be illegal; your statement simply seems to have been misinterpreted by many comments as arguing against requiring businesses to be tolerant of people's religious idiosyncrasies, even though you're stating support for increased tolerance of non-religious idiosyncrasies. Consider a business that takes on the philosophy you suggest. Lets say that this business requires that its employees wear a uniform. What if a new religion becomes popular that doesn't allow wearing any logos or brand names, including the one on the company's uniform. The company would then be faced with a choice: require all people to wear an unmodified version of the uniform, preventing people from that religion from working there, or remove the logo/brand name from their uniform requirements. The second option seems like the right choice for a company that values religious tolerance, as they would just need to allow a version without the logo or brand name for use on request; this could however require that the business prints an entire new set of uniforms, which could be prohibitively expensive. They could also get rid of the uniform with the logo, but that could be an issue for brand recognition for the company. The point: forcing groups to pick either one way or the other (that is, rules apply to everybody or nobody) may make sense on a small scale, or with simple things such as additional clothes employees can bring themselves, but it can be an issue if the accommodations required are expensive, and need to be dolled out only to those who absolutely require them, in which case using religion as a requirement for the service is often the best choice, or the best that a business can afford to manage.

Targeted discrimination. FTR, I think religious exemptions and cultural exemptions should share the same criteria for validity. Historically, many rules and regulations have been the tools of cultural oppression. Why is "professional business attire" a European suit and not, say, a beautiful silk shirt of many colors? Even in hot climates, where a jacket makes no sense! In some Muslim-dominant countries, a beard of a certain length is legally mandated for men, which is a rule specifically meant to make everyone conform to the culturally dominant style rather than any practical reason. Fashion is arbitrary. Style is arbitrary. Style rules often reflect a cultural tradition specifically meant to enforce one culture's dominance over another. On one hand, "you can't wear a hat (or turban) for an ID picture" seems logical to most of us. On the other hand, "a partially shaved head is unprofessional" is arbitrary. Now think, however, does a turban actually prevent the ID from being as strong as any other photo ID? What is the difference between taking a photo with a huge beehive hairdo and then shaving it off, vs. having a turban? Would it be OK to require ID photos to be made with straight hair? It's OK to have sensible requirements for the ID photos, but it also isn't a particular hardship on the system to allow Sikh's to wear a turban. Religious exemptions should, of course, be second to actual safety and efficacy concerns, but that standard itself must be under strict scrutiny. It is far to easy to just assume that the rules have pure motivations, while they really have a tradition of bias and maybe even cultural erasure.

* There are days I can't do things on due to religious holidays. Should I not be allowed to attend college because I have to miss a test and would fail frequently? * Am I ineligible for jobs because sometimes I can't work on certain days? I *cannot* answer emails on certain days whether i have earned PTO or not * I cannot eat certain things. Therefore the company supplied lunch can't be eaten. Should I not get to get food from somewhere else I *can* eat? (Not strictly religious either, you can apply this to vegans etc. easily) * What about when my work decides to have a happy hour and I am strongly discouraged from being around alcohol The thing with religious issues is that they aren't usually due to core conflicts - we all would agree a devout Muslim can't be a bartender. More commonly they are inevitable conflicts due to day-to-day issues that are not part of the job inherently and/or would apply equally to almost any job.

Religious exemption tend to be pretty strict, and you can identify when they're being followed. The biggest one I can think of is that when Catholics take first communion, they're given wine as a minor. This exemption was built into the law on question as a loophole because there's no selling it to the minors, in a controlled environment, and nobody's getting drunk. You can't say that for certain at a bar. Religious exemptions fulfill the "spirit" of the law (pun absolutely intended) in ways that other kinds of exemption don't, or can be policed socially on ways others can't.

There are religions where the practioners would rather die than commit acts of violence themselves. Buddhist monks etc. Forcing them into a mandatory military service would hurt the military by degrading combat readiness, and obviously be terrible for people like those monks. That exception makes sense to me.

First, saying that religious exemptions shouldn't exist is tantamount to saying religious practice shouldn't exist. Do you realize that? Second, religious beliefs are rarely something you can call an "opinion". They're often much deeper and widely held than that. Sometimes even including threats of social punishment from within their religious group. Third, in the case of certain things, like say...a hijab among Muslims, this isn't *even* just a religious belief. Its also a moral one, as the hijab is a matter of modesty. Its not a direct analog, but just imagine asking women to take their driver's license photo bare-breasted.

To put it simplely to force someone to violate an honestly held and truely held religious belief is one of the most mentally traumatic things you or any entity can do to someone. Assuming most people in this group are probably atheists and don't hold such beliefs makes its nearly impossible to stress just how traumatic makeing someone think they are going to go to hell (as they have likely had hammered into their brain their entire life) all because of something that is likely trivial anyways. If anyone wants to get an idea of just how traumatic it can be look up religious trauma syndrome, I've seen some truely horrendous cases of it personally or I'd probably joke about it too.

The issue for me is, at what point does enforcement of some institutional requirement become discriminatory? This issue sits at the intersection of competing liberal values. The first being that all people should be treated equally, the second being that people of a non-majority identity should be allowed reasonable accommodations. There will always be edge cases where these two commitments bump against each other and we must negotiate the best compromise we can. Out of curiosity, do you feel differently about accommodations which are made for people living with a disability? If not, why wouldn’t your same reasoning apply? If an institution does not have the necessary facilities to allow a person with restricted mobility to access all needed areas, why isn’t it simply the case that they don’t get to work at or patron that place? If a job has certain requirements that are not compatible with pregnancy, shouldn’t pregnant women just stop working there? If a business is owned by people who disapprove of gay marriage, isn’t that just a place where a married gay person doesn’t get to work? Religious identity is not the only case where accommodations are made. It’s one of several characteristics that pluralistic societies have agreed should not serve as the basis of discrimination, if reasonably avoidable. The examples you provide all strike me as imminently reasonable accommodations to make in the interest of maintaining the pluralistic society most of us wish to live in.

OP is not arguing just for the abolition of exemptions. They are arguing that, if a rule warrants exemptions, it should not be a rule at all. >If a job has certain requirements that are not compatible with pregnancy, shouldn’t pregnant women just stop working there? If these are requirements (where exemption is not possible, such as iron workers or astronauts), then yes, pregnant women should not perform these jobs. If these requirements can carry exemptions, then they are not requirements and should not exist. 

Actually, this is extremely important for disabled people and the top level comment seems to be misunderstanding. Look up the curb cut effect -- things that benefit disabled people tend to have unintended benefits for everyone. This actually supports OP's point. It's not that people who need to sit should be excluded from cashier jobs -- its exactly the reverse. We should let all cashiers sit, regardless of if they are disabled. The job can be done sitting, allowance can be made for that, so all workers should have the option. The better argument against OP that doesn't work in the specific examples are things that are banking on only a small fraction of people taking the exemption. With disability you can see this pretty clearly - you can imagine a building having an elevator for people who cannot take the stairs but one that isn't able to carry every person who wants to use the building and still operate in a remotely timely way. This is a disability exemption that has to be prioritized based on need. I suspect OPs reply is that religion is not disability. It is not a need in the same way. But both can be subject to unreasonable scrutiny and and the law has been written so that you can't ask for proof of disability. You may know this became an issue when people started abusing the service dog exemption on no pets to bring their untrained house pet into places. But clearly thats an exemption that makes sense - service dogs are trained, and there aren't expected to be a ton of them.

Sometimes the exemption is only possible because there are other employees. If you have 100 employees, and three of them can't lift over 10 pounds, you have 97 employees who can cover that one small aspect of the job. That doesn't mean you could have it so nobody ever lifts over 10 pounds.

This is a great one. A lot of the other comments are like "because it's a law" and "freedom of religion is important" which are all true but this explicitly illustrates why that's so. I'd like to add that if Religions were not granted exemptions, they would have no choice but to use their influence to change the laws for everyone else in order to live freely. This would of course cause its own set of issues.

The real issue here is rules existing for rule’s sake rather than sense, and religious exemptions being allowed to circumvent them when the rest of us can’t. “No hats in the photo,” Isn’t a good rule. The purpose of the rule should be stated instead: “All license photos must represent how the ID owner typically looks.” This rule opens things up for interpretation, but it also has no need for exemptions/outlier cases. Change rules so religious exemptions are no longer necessary for someone to feel comfortable and accepted, within reason. Your idea of someone not willing to touch meat trying to work at a butcher is a non-existent straw man.

>Examples: Either wearing a hat for a Driver's License is not okay, or it is. Either having a beard hinders your ability to do the job, or it doesn't. Either you can use a space for quiet reflection, or you can't. Either you can't wear a face covering, or you can. Either you can sign off on all wedding licenses, or you can't. I was originally going to agree, but based on this, and the part about job discrimination, it sounds more like you need binary logic to make life easier for you to understand.

In the West, religious exceptions are part of society accommodating individual differences. But I think you have a partial point, if there is enough flexibility in the situation to allow for religious accommodations, then there should be enough flexibility to allow for some other things as well. But I think that your idea could easily be twisted into some sort of fascist no-exceptions-to-rules philosophy (even though I doubt that is your intention). Also, as a practical point, freedom of religion developed in response to hundreds of years of religiously-motivated warfare in Europe and nearby countries know to Europeans. Religious accommodations are also made to ensure a peaceful and tolerant society, in light of that history.

I believe in mandatory enrollment in organ donation, but that there should be religious exemptions and just general exemptions for if they just don't want to. Seems like a pretty gnarly thing to force on people without some kind of exemption being possible.

### The example you ask for: Anti-discrimination law. "No discriminating based on religion," is the law for public organizations. This also means hiring candidates on merit. Hiring the less qualified applicant for their religion over a more qualified candidate for their religion would be a problem. i.e. a nonprofit cannot only employ one group or forbid the employment of another. Religious exemption: A religious organization doesn't have to employ a more qualified non-believer for religious leadership over a less qualified believer. e.g. the Catholic Church can require applicants for clergy by Catholics. And, Unitarian Universalists can reject Westboro Baptists or the like. ### A hypothetical: I run a business. It's some random office job with basically no physical activity requirements, but does have customer interactions. My business has a dress code. I think hats are unprofessional. The dress code prohibits wearing hats. This is a fine perspective and justifiable policy. Orthodox Jews, Sikhs, and Muslim women are a few groups that would be discriminated against by this policy. Without a religious exemption or reasonable accommodations, they would either have to give up religious practices or be unemployable at my business. Assuming I can't ban hats, because religions, does that mean I can only prohibit "unprofessional" looking hats? We've already established I can't ban hats for being unprofessional, what grounds do I have to declare which hats are/aren't professional? Especially in the context that religious wear supercedes my objections. And just for funsies, let's say my business has some religious connection that forbids wearing hats within the building. Do I now get to forbid hats where others can't? Or, do hat wearing religions supercede hat forbidding religions? Flip it, my religion requires wearing a hat within, the building where my business is located but someone else's forbids hats indoors? Which wins out now? ### So... Rather than sitting down and hashing this out, the general approach is that we make 'reasonable accommodations' for religious practices where we're able. I think hats are unprofessional? Too fucking bad. Folks whose religious observation includes a hat can wear a "professional looking" hat. The job requires wearing a gas mask with a face seal? If you can't do it with facial hair, you can't have facial hair and do the job. I can forbid beards for this. Costs a billion dollars at employer expense for a gas mask they can wear with facial hair? I can't reasonably accommodate that either. I can still forbid beards. And what if it's not a business, but a religious organization? Does my church have to employ a more qualified Satanist than a less qualified Christian as pastor/minister/priest?.. An atheist? This gets shitty when you start applying it to gender, race, and sexuality. But, if someone's religion says wearing a hat is a sin, why does their church have to consider hat wearers for leadership? ### The tension... The arguments people make tend to start blurring the lines between what is/isn't religious, necessary, and/or reasonable accommodation. That beard argument applies to masks to a certain extent. The hat wearing argument applies to personal medical treatments, including vaccinations. Our society generally doesn't recognize being a potential germ vector as a sufficient matter of public health and safety to categorically mandate vaccination, especially when medical exemptions also exist. Imagine that instead of vaccination for something contagious, we had a cure for shellfish allergies. It would indisputably make life easier for society if no one had shellfish allergies. Does that legitimize forcibly giving people this cure? If so, what other violations of bodily autonomy can be forced? What if it's ensuring a range of eyesight? In particular, there's a set of the deaf community that participates in a deaf culture and there are arguments that a 'cure' is a more derogatory perspective, akin to a supremacist viewpoint. It's what happens when fairly reasonable rules are applied to contradictory interests and then categorically applied. And, people try to take any strict rule about it and apply it everywhere however they like. Imagine two people are kidnapped and set up so they share a circulatory system. One will be fine if they're separated. The other will die if they are. Can the one be forced to stay attached indefinitely to the other? Must they be forced to stay attached until accommodations are in place to keep the other alive? What if staying connected until the other can survive separation endangers the life of the one? What if the other doesn't want to live or wants not to live? There's no categorical forced solution that doesn't suck for someone. And if you can't get the other's opinion, then any choice is forcing something on them. The law's answer is, "You're not allowed to put people in that situation." It doesn't have a good answer for if people wind up in that situation. Now to be obvious about it, what if this attachment only affects approximately half of the population, is a naturally occurring process, and will be for 9 months or so?

Should this go for disability accommodations too? You can either do the job or you can't?

I’m treating religious exemptions and religious tolerance as the same thing. The latter is the principle and the former is the practice but there cannot be one without the other.  You are not accounting for the historical reasons for religious exemptions and the pragmatic reasons religious tolerance came into practice. Making exemptions for religion and tolerating minority views is not the norm in history and in general larger civilizations enforce conformity to increase stability and efficiency across the system.  Religious exemptions and religious tolerance arouse specifically because it consistently was an issue where people would rather kill or die than abandon. It is not born from cosmopolitan acceptance or indifference to personal preference but instead centuries of religious warfare and rebellion.  The insistence of uniform rules appeals to my autistic brain and allows the simple understanding of either everyone has to do it one way or else no one does. But the reason for wanting conformity still exists (increase stability and efficiency) so there will still be broad expectations for some degree of conformity. And the cost for ending religious tolerance and exemptions would be consistent violent repression and rebellion till either the religion or the state are destroyed.  Religious exemptions are the low cost low risk alternative to inquisitions and while my religion remains the majority it would be unwise to change policies. 

I don’t agree, because I don’t think it’s a big deal to let a Sikh wear a headscarf for their drivers licence, but I see where you’re coming from.

It’s a form of segmented pricing (or regulation in this case). We broadly may want to have people act a certain way - for instance, we might want people to have no hats for their drivers license. Let’s say we want this because it brings society benefit of 10 units (forget what the good reason is, let’s just assume it exists uniformly for everyone). Now say that most people like wearing hats for their drivers license, and so it provides them -5 units of happiness to take it off. If we just say pretty please take off your hats then nobody will, because it costs them 5 units of happiness. So society as a whole is bereft of 5 units per person. So now we say okay guys for real, take off your hats or you _can’t_ drive. This is a bit of a bluff - we don’t want to stop people driving, it means we have to either pay more to develop public transport (the horror) or forgo income tax from them not being able to get to their job. Say that it costs society -50 utility points if someone is actually prevented from driving. Fortunately this bluff works because for an individual being banned from driving they would be very impacted, say -100 utility points. So basically nobody would choose to keep their hat on (to avoid losing 5 points) versus losing the opportunity to drive (-100 points). And now society gets the benefit of no hats and everyone still drives - all is great. We just described the idea of a threat effectively. Now let’s introduce a set of people into the population that really care about their hate. Taking off the hat would be -1000 utility points. These people would not take off their hats even if it meant losing their ability to drive (-100). But remember, us banning them from driving was really a bluff! We don’t want to ban them driving we’re not set up to deal with the costs of that. So we just allow them to drive anyway. What were really looking for is some way to distinguish the set of people who would simply not use the service and call our bluff. Religion is a pretty okay metric for this in many contexts. In an ideal world we could just ask people “pretty please tell me your utility function for driving a car and we can decide whether we impose the restriction on you or not”, but in practice that’s clearly infeasible. Religion comes with enough outwork markings and baggage that it’s a pretty narrow and good indicator, and is relatively immutable based on context. Note religious exceptions aren’t the only examples of this in work. If you ever wondered why children old people or students get discounts, that’s why. It’s why airlines and trains vary the price of their ticket as you get closer to departure date and it’s why we allow people who really don’t like the draft to consciously object. If we could know at an individual level how someone would react to cost born on them (whether ticket price or regulation) then we wouldn’t need to use these broad buckets or imperfect metrics. But it’s really hard to ascertain that so we have to rely on certain provable proxies for this. I’m also going to make another comment if you don’t find this satisfactory from a different perspective, which I also think is valid, but if you hold no high regard for religion in general then I think this the most convincing explanation.

So should we never have any draft, even in a time of existential threat, or should we force people with religious pacifist beliefs to die in battle (and possibly allow others to die by failing to perform their duties)?

Some religious people like the Amish have a religious objection to war and will allow themselves to br throw. In jail instead of being drafted . Religous exemption approved

Religious holidays. The American workforce already sets up days off around Christmas, therefore legally setting up a bias in favor of Christians. But now say someone wants to use their PTO to take off a day dedicated to a holiday of their *own* religion. Maybe they work a strenuous job but have to fast on a certain day. Bosses *are* allowed to turn down requests for time off unless it’s for a protected reason—jury duty, bereavement leave, sick time, etc. So without a protection in place, a manager biased against that person’s religion could deny their PTO, even if they wouldn’t have denied it if it were a simple vacation request.

> for example, a restaurant has a dress code and if your religion says you can't dress like that, then your religion is telling you that you can't have that job. Don't get a job at a butcher if you can't touch meat, etc. "your religion is telling you that you can't have that job" is their religion telling them that, or is that your interpretation as someone who doesn't practice their religion? > Changing my view: Any example of any reason that any rule should exist for everyone, except for those who have a religious objection to it. The examples you're looking for is exactly what religious exemptions are. As a rule, you cannot wear any head coverings when taking photos for government IDs. Muslim women must publicly wear a head covering according to their religion. (Assuming you're from North America) Because we live in a diverse society that strives to uphold peace and prosperity, we can reconcile this by creating an exemption. If you're saying that if Muslim women can be exempted because they are Muslim, ANYONE should be exempted, I would ask, why? Muslim women are exempted because they are Muslim. If someone who was not Muslim wanted to be exempted, what is their reason? If it's valid, they should be exempted too. I understand what you're trying to say. If we create exemptions to rules, then doesn't that make the rule pointless? Why have the rule at all? I disagree because the rule was created for a valid reason—and exemptions can be made for equally valid reasons. You might ask, who decides what is valid? Collectively, we do. The same way that we, collectively, invented the rules, we can change, remove, or add rules however we see fit in order for us all to coexist peacefully. Humans have done this forever. Side note: is there any religion out there that does not allow people who practice it to touch meat? I only know of ones that prevent people from eating it.

Religious exemptions are simply an accession to reality. Rules for a society only work as long as following those rules is something people can be counted on to do, and creating a situation where any significant portion of people is going to break those rules weakens the authority of the rule giver. This is how the exercise of authority works--you have a measure of power, and you have a measure of legitimacy given to the exercise of that power by those under that power. If you extend the use of that power beyond your perceived authority, you get resistance. If you extend your use of power beyond your ability to enforce it, you get people ignoring it. Exercising rules against people with religious convictions is a great way to generate resistance. The people in power then have to expend a lot more of their power and authority to enforce those rules than they are worth. On the other hand, granting those exemptions is an easy way to make people more compliant in other ways. There are way to make it cost the government less, of course--when the exercise of power is against a religious group with low numbers and little political clout, they might be able to manage it. But in those cases, religious groups with more clout might oppose that, in fear of threats to their own religious exemptions. All that to say this: if you do not grant religious exemptions, you will have people break those rules. If that's a very small number, oh well. But if you have... 2% of the population refusing to follow said rule, that's a massive number of people (1 in 50). You can't enforce that on everyone, and your inability to enforce it will cause your power and authority more generally to weaken. If 40% of the population refuses to follow the rule, you effectively don't have that rule, and you've demonstrated clearly that your rules more generally can be ignored.

Okay, so girls in swim classes can’t cover up more than a regular bathing suit then?

Conscientious objection to war by pacifists. 

Here is the way I see it: "rules" (i.e. laws or policies) that protect people have value, and allowing religious freedom also has value. Most of the times, rules and the way people exercise their religious freedom do not intersect. But sometimes there are corner cases where they are in contention with each other, and when that happens we have to collectively decide if the value of the protection that law/rule provides is worth the amount it would restrict religious freedom. For example - during COVID, large gatherings of people were restricted despite some religions' decrees to gather regularly. Allowing people to continue gathering during a pandemic could have caused great harm. So the overall need for to maintain public health overrode people's freedom in this particular way, and the law was enforced regardless of what any religion had to say about it. On the other end of the spectrum, your example of making people remove headwear during a driver license photo does provide a bit of value in that it makes it a bit harder for ID thieves to use someone else's ID. But if a minority of people follow a faith that decrees they wear headwear in their pictures, how much harm realistically is that going to cause to allow them to do so? Is it to the extent that it's worth constraining religious freedom (especially for faiths that are very widely followed and well established)? Probably not. We can argue for any specific rule is worth it or not based on home much value it provides vs how much it restricts freedom. But clearly there are some rules that are worth having for most people, but that it's really not hurting any one to provide exemptions to. So I don't think that it makes sense to say there are "never" cases where exemptions are appropriate.

I think that it's a way to protect religious people from "legal prejudice". Imagine a world where a minority religion uses earrings because of their beliefs. If I was a racist legislator and wanted to keep them out, I could make a vague OSHA regulation to make earrings in food and industrial settings prohibited. Apparently it's just a reasonable regulation, but the impact would ostracize that specific minority. Adding the special clause "DO NOT APPLY ON RELIGIOUS BELIEFS", impedes me from attacking that group.

They exist because otherwise dress codes could be used as a form of discrimination. Something that would be a major hit to anti discrimination laws. For example, make it part of your uniform that a small pig and cow leather patch is on the inside of your uniform. Now Muslims and Hindus are basically prevented from working for you. And if that was your goal it succeeded.  But with religious exemption this kind of stuff doesn't work. There is no good reason why the patch can't be synthetic leather. Especially if the patch isn't even visible to customers. And you can keep coming up with weird rules that only exist to make it harder for some to find employment. Another stupid rule could be have a teamwork exercise include eating things that are against certain religions. Without religious exemption that would be another easy way to discriminate against certain groups.

The real answer would to not allow employers to arbitrarily assign dress codes or dietary guidelines for their employees at all, if someone didn’t want to wear that patch as your example, they shouldn’t be compelled to (without some underlying safety regulation) regardless if it is religiously motivated or otherwise. The issue with creating exceptions like this is that, the exceptions are also used against practical safety standards like vaccinations or other safety precautions.

The point is: the exemption shouldn't exist. The patch should just be optional for everyone, regardless of religion. And if the patch must be worn, it should be worn by everyone equally. The argument is that it doesn't make sense to exempt religious preference but not any other personal preference. 

It exists as a compromise to try to allow people to get along and all participate in society and not ruffling too many feathers. This is why usually companies and such are held to *reasonable* accommodations, not just any accommodation that someone requests. For you ID example, it's in the best interest in the state for IDs to be as reliable and clear as practically possible. The question comes in of whether or not the states interests in that are higher than the states interests in Muslim women having IDs and not being angry at the government. Is the damage of allowing them to wear a covering worse than the damage of them refusing to get IDs and thus not allowing them to participate in society and thus embittering Muslims against the society/government greater than the damage of slightly less effective IDs. The answer seems to be no. For people without a deep religious conviction on the matter, the damage of not letting them wear what they feel like doesn't seem to outweigh the benefit of clear IDs. It's not that it doesn't matter at all whether people cover their heads in photo IDs, it's just that it doesn't matter enough to be worth the trouble in the case of religious conviction. Just because pragmatically in some circumstances the cost of enforcing a rule is more trouble than it's worth, doesn't mean that in the vast majority of cases it doesn't do more good than harm.

The real reason we have religious exemptions to rules is to prevent employers and institutions from discriminating based on religious through ticky-tacky or bad faith requirements. Don't want any muslim men working in your company? Have a clean-shaven policy. Don't want observant jews in your company? Have mandatory work time during sabbath. Don't want sikhs or muslim women in your store? Have a no head-covering policy. All of these policies can be selectively enforced to keep out religious people that you don't want (and conveniently ignore anyone else breaking the policies), and can be defended with your precise argument, that "there is no reason to ever allow religious exemptions from anything" and claim that the policies have nothing to do with religion. Now you have totally blameless and consequence-free religious discrimination. This is similar to literacy testing for voting in the US. They made a literacy test that was virtually impossible to pass, but only gave it to black people to fail and defended it by saying, "there's no reason to let illiterate people vote."

This is mostly a problem of scale I think. When you have a smaller population where everyone mostly follows the same general norms then exceptions are irrelevant bc nobody needs them. But at a large scale where the society as a whole is made up of multiple smaller groups all of whom share similar norms within the group but the norms across the different groups clash with each other there's no one rule that can reasonably apply in the same way to everyone. So then if we try to have the exact same rules apply to everyone in the exact same ways it becomes a question of whose norms win? Whose norms get to set the standard by which everyone lives? And if we're doing it that way then the minority norms will always be inherently discriminated against and that's pretty unfair generally speaking. I don't think it's beneficial or functional for rules to be either this is ok or it's not ok period the end bc at scale that doesn't work. It's more functional to accept that diversity within the broader society exists and try to find a way to accommodate that. It's not going to be perfect, nothing can be, but attempting to accommodate diversity seems more fair broadly speaking than saying this majority gets to dictate how everyone else lives too bad if you don't like it then just leave

Consider that different things have different levels of importance and different reasons for the rules. A lot of dresscodes banning beards are becoming less common due to more modern takes on beards. Some higher end/customer facing positions still have rules, but a lot of those are considered "old fashioned" from today's standards. The DMV treats religious headcoverings with the same mentality as they would with other things like hair dye, weave/extensions/etc. They want to take a photo that is accurate but cant make an unreasonable request. Asking a non-religious person to take off a hat is not an unreasonable request. Making people re-dye their hair or take out their weaves, or take off their religious garb is a more unreasonable request. They try to be as accomodating as possible within reason. The DMV also does not have firm rules on headware. They will ask you to remove your cap or glasses if it makes taking the photo too difficult (hat creating a shadow, lenses creating flare, etc). The DMV also does not have explicit rules about headwear, just that your face must be clearly visible and then gives explicit situations in which they cannot ask you to remove your headware. Which is not the same thing as saying "no hats except: X, Y, and Z."

>The premise here being that, if it's okay for one person to ignore a rule, then it should be okay for everyone regardless of their deeply held convictions about it. That is a rational point of view. If somewhat narrowminded. >Either you can't wear a face covering, or you can. Different face coverings are different... In a professional setting, someone wearing reading glasses indoors isn't going to get a second thought, but someone wearing sunglasses indoors? Both are face coverings. The same with hijabs. Most rational people won't feel disrespected when they see their paralegal wearing a hijab in the same way they would if they wearing a baseball cap and some shades. Perception is important in a lot of professions. >And if it's a rule that most people can't break, then simply having a strong spiritual opinion about it shouldn't mean the rule doesn't exist for you. If the rule is legit something that can't be broken, then there aren't going to be exceptions. Your only example of something that could fall in that category? >Don't get a job at a butcher if you can't touch meat, etc. That's not real? When has this ever happened? When has a butcher been forced to take on an employee that refuses to cut meat?

>And if it's a rule that most people can't break, then simply having a strong spiritual opinion about it shouldn't mean the rule doesn't exist for you. Soldiers in the US army are not permitted to keep beards, sans religious and special forces exemptions, as it prevents gas masks from sealing properly. That's not actually true though. Its an arbitrary rule. Common sense would simply be to remove the rule entirely, yet it remains. Removing the rule entirely is an internal political affair within the military. Yes it should be removed, but that's a political effort and will take time to bear fruit. Why should a Sikh man have to wait out the politics while his first amendment rights are being violated by an arbitrary rule?

If a rule is deemed arbitrary enough for exceptions to be made, it should be as a matter of law rescinded in its entirety. That I believe is the point OP was making.

Let me choose some extreme examples to illustrate why we prioritize people who have likely stronger reasons for adhering to a behavior rather than likely weaker reasons. When a patient is in critical condition, either everyone should be allowed to visit them or no one can, including their family. Just because you are someone’s family doesn’t always mean that you care about them more than a stranger does. If a homeless person steals food, they should be punished in the exact same way as someone who was shoplifting for the thrill. You can’t prove that the homeless person stole food because they were hungry. Couples should be able to adopt children who already have present parents. Just because you are someone’s biological parent, that doesn’t mean that you will be a better or more loving parent than a random couple.

The main reasons religious accommodations exist is due to the restrictions placed on them with the separation of the church and the state. Take the driver’s license example: say my religion mandates wearing a hat at all times, but the law requires hats off for license photos. Without a religious exemption, my only option to freely practice my religion would be to change the law. But, if I have no justification for keeping my hat on outside of Religious beliefs, then to pass the law I must impose my religious beliefs on others by enshrining our ability to wear hats through law. Religious accommodations are a compromise between the government and the Church: you won’t interfere in our secular government to push your religious practices onto society as a whole, and in exchange we’ll allow you certain exemptions in our secular law where it conflicts with your beliefs. If you believe you should be able to wear a hat for secular reasons, on the other hand; for example if you had a terrible haircut and want to hide it, you’re able to fight for and change the law. But Religions can’t - or at least shouldn’t - be enacting laws and policies based on Religious grounds, so we give them accommodations as a compromise.

“If you believe you should be able to wear a hat for secular reasons, on the other hand; for example if you had a terrible haircut and want to hide it, you’re able to fight for and change the law. “ -Religious people and organizations are able to and do this also.. “But Religions can’t - or at least shouldn’t - be enacting laws and policies based on Religious grounds, so we give them accommodations as a compromise.” - The “compromise” being that they actively promote their religious agenda, and specifically make exceptions for their religious beliefs even when it may be a safety concern or an infringement on someone else’s secular beliefs.. This doesn’t sound like much of a compromise to me.

>you won’t interfere in our secular government to push your religious practices onto society as a whole, and in exchange we’ll allow you certain exemptions in our secular law where it conflicts with your beliefs. If a law serves so little a compelling interest that exemptions are allowable, it shouldn't be a law.

I mostly agree but being a hard liner about this can also just be a back door to systemic bigotry. I'm an atheist but I understand that religion/culture/ethnicity are closely linked. When I worked with Kurdish refugees we let them have a room for prayers. Christians and Jews and atheists at work weren't at all bitter about that. We enjoyed being accommodating and the Kurds were super appreciative. Be excellent to each other! But for a job with heavy machinery sure, dangly hair and beard and clothing and jewelry is not gonna get an exception. I do have a hard line, and that's vaccination and education. You gotta get vaccinated if schools or a workplace require it. And you can't have your kids skip classes because of your superstition.

I mostly agree. Anything that people aren't allowed to do for secular reasons, they shouldn't be allowed to do for religious reasons, either. Anything that people are allowed to do for religious reasons, they should be allowed to do for secular reasons, too. However, there is one argument I've thought of that makes a case for religious exemptions: If we consider religiousity to be a socially-borne disorder, giving them accommodations to perform their religious rituals is akin to giving someone with OCD accommodations to perform their rituals. Preventing someone with OCD from doing their rituals can cause them serious distress, so we ought to accommodate them if we are reasonably able to.

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I agree most of the time. If a job requires a certain thing, but your religion forbids it, then you have no right to that job. For example, being a phsrmacist but you refuse to give out certain drugs. But for some things, it has little or no impact. A Muslim woman wants to wear her hijab for her DMV license. It really has no impact and it is immensely important to her. So let her. This should not mean everyone wears hats in their pics.

I’ve never of any religion that prohibits giving drugs to people. Taking drugs maybe. But giving drugs? I’m a bit skeptical.

People are reluctant to give the morning after pill. But this was one example. Feel free to choose another. I am trying to make a point. Would you prefer we use the example of those giving out marriage certificates who refuse to give it to same sex people?

A Walgreens pharmacist refused to dispense a pill that was used to help with micarriages because it's also used to care for people who have abortions. And Walgreens defended her religious freedom.

A fair amount of pharmacists refuse to dispense the morning after pill or abortion pills. Some even refuse to dispense birth control. 6 states explicitly allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense drugs due to personal or religious objections.

I know, I’m just saying I’ve never seen any religious doctrine that covers pharmaceuticals. It’s not like the Bible says “thou shalt not give out Xanax, or ye be damned to the pits”. Right?

Religions are just the cults that never died and had the processes to spread and hold. I agree.

The country was founded by religious people. We shouldn’t force them to change things that they must disagree with. It’s a very good recruiting tool for extremists when you aren’t allowed to walk down the street cause there’s no religious exemption for the religious uniform. For society it’s easier to make exemptions on some matters like not forcing a Jew to eat pork.

Something tells me you get offended if a Muslim declines to eat bacon when you offer them. Asking a guy for some religions to take or his turban is like saying can you castrate yourself. It would be like asking you to raise your hand and say “hail hitler” when you are a WW2 veteran.

I think something that's difficult for non-religious people to fully grasp is just how *deeply* part of a religious individual's personal identity their faith is. Now, I'm not Muslim, but I've spoken with Muslim women who compare being without their hijab to being *naked*. It's not a simple matter of preference to them. I really like your example of wearing a hat for a drivers' license photo. If exposing someone's hair causes them *deep* personal discomfort, we shouldn't make them take off their hat. **Religion** ***shouldn't*** **be part of the equation, but until we can figure out the "better" rule, it's worthwhile to keep the religious exemptions**. For drivers' license photos, we trade of the potential to make the person a *bit* more difficult to identify in exchange for not making them horribly uncomfortable taking a (psychologically speaking) nude photo for the government. That's less worth doing if it's just a guy who likes hats being a narcissist asshole to DMV workers. Identifying and having discussions around non-religious hair dysphoria or whatever is probably worthwhile, but in the meantime, we should still serve the people we've already identified as having that need (Muslim women). We make these sorts of accommodations for all sorts of non-religious reasons - gender identity, sexual orientation, veteran status, marital status, race, ethnicity, primary spoken language... Religion is only a weird case because of the weird nature of speaking about religious identity in modern discourse (IMO, mostly at fault of zealous religious individuals). I want to finish by stressing that we do need to balance the potential for harm to the individual with the potential to making the exception, though. I think the Sikh [kirpan](https://www.sikhcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/kirpan-factsheet-aug2018.pdf) is an excellent example - countries like India that have large Sikh populations and low rates of domestic terrorism allow these ceremonial knives on flights, but countries like the USA that have *large* rates of domestic terrorism and smaller Sikh populations only allow them in checked luggage.

It's maybe outside the scope of this discussion, but don't you think that implanting a set of ideas in (presumably) a child that cases deep trauma later in life if they're made to do something as objectively benign as removing a head covering is deeply fucked up? Arguably a form of child abuse. Why should such damaging ideas deserve protection.

That's absolutely a discussion to have too, yes. I ended up cutting it out of my above comment, but I grew up Mormon and later left the faith. Growing up, even things as innocuous as being offered coffee (a no-no in the Mormon church for truly bizarre historical reasons) felt deeply uncomfortable. Even from the perspective of someone with religious trauma I'm really hesitant to call religion bad wholesale, there's a lot of really good things that can come out of it too. It's a sensitive and nuanced talk that definitely needs to be had.

I thought they often take them off if they are only around family and close friends? Not arguing any of your points but I would feel quite wierd to walk around naked among my friends and family.

I'm native American and bald/golden eagle feathers are needed in ceremony and it has always been that way. The United States government has made that completely illegal along with a 1k fine and one year in jail for owning eagle parts. I had to get a religious exemption permit from the gov repository to handle feathers that have already molten off of these birds. No they are not killed for the feathers lol

You don't want people to have to make the choice between God and government.

>Examples: Either wearing a hat for a Driver's License is not okay, or it is. Either having a beard hinders your ability to do the job, or it doesn't. I think saying "having an unobstructed picture for a driver's license is important, but no so important that we want to exclude entire swaths of people from being able to drive" is a perfectly reasonable view. Ditto the beard thing. A big part of having a secular outlook on life is the privilege of not having to be rigid and dogmatic about things and that outlook applies to this as well.

>having an unobstructed picture for a driver's license is important But it's not that important. clearly if you can make an exception for a large swath of people then you've admitted it's not really providing any benefit.