UK Christians take fight to Europe

(Vatican Radio) This week four British Christians took their fight to the European Court of Human Rights, over claims they lost their jobs as a result of discrimination against their beliefs.They include an airline worker and a nurse stopped from wearing a cross and a registrar who did not want to marry gay couples. All four lost separate employment tribunals in the UK relating to their beliefs .

The human rights court has in the past given considerable leeway to member states to regulate the wearing of religious dress and display religious symbols in public.

In one previous case, the court ruled that a French school could make its Muslim students remove their headscarves during sports classes for safety reasons.

In another, it found that an Italian state school did not violate the rights to religious freedom or education by displaying crucifixes in classrooms.

So are these four cases being taken to Europe a further example of discrimination against Christians?

Peter Norris, Communications Officer from the UK based legal centre, Christian Concern which is representing two of the four workers, thinks they are. “I mean twenty years ago even ten years ago these case were not coming up and all of a sudden they are and there have been certain changes in legislation that have created these situations where Christians have been told to remove their crosses”.

Speaking to Lydia O’Kane, Mr Norris says that if these cases are not successful, the public space for Christians is just going to continue to shrink and certain jobs will not be open to Christians and therefore, Christians will not be able to be involved in every aspect of society.”

A decision by the court, is expected to take several months. Listen to Lydia O'Kane's interview with Peter Norris