UK (Christian Today): A Comres poll for Premier Christian Radio has found that most people disagree with a tribunal’s decision to uphold an NHS ban on a nurse who wanted to wear her crucifix necklace to work.
An employment tribunal ruled that the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust was right to ban nurse Shirley Chaplin from wearing the necklace during shifts because it compromised health and safety rules.
Shirley Chaplin had gone to court claiming religious discrimination on the grounds that staff of other faiths were allowed to wear religious symbols.
The tribunal ruled, however, that the trust’s ban did not amount to discrimination.
The Comres poll for Premier Radio found that 81 per cent of the public thought that people should have the right to wear a cross at work “whatever their job”.
The Bishop of Lichfield the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill told the station: “It does seem daft that Muslims are allowed to wear headscarfs, Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans but Christians shouldn’t be allowed to wear a cross and to deny the significance of that and the support it is ... that’s extraordinary.”
