Time off for bad behaviour...

The article didn’t quite appear on April 1, so I have to assume it’s stating a fact. Apparently something called the British Equality and Human Rights Commission, as a result of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, has put the cat among the pigeons big time.

Should I decide to become a Dukhobor, I would turn up at the bank, stark naked, and my manager couldn’t do a blind thing about it

It has brought into law a decree that allows members of multifarious religions, sects, lunatic fringes and frankly barking-mad klikkas to practise the tenets of their beliefs, wherever and whenever they decree. And... their employers have – by law – to respect this.

So, if I decide that by calling myself say... a druid, I will require certain days off to practise my religion, or head off to Stonehenge for a summer or winter solstice or climb to the peak of Mount Magħtab for a week-long chant-in, or disappear off for a few months on a pilgrimage to, say, Benidorm, or even vanish into a protracted retreat on Ibiza, then my employer is legally bound to allow this without docking my pay.

Not surprisingly, this got me thinking – and I’ll bet I’m not the only one. With a little homework, I can claim membership of enough weird faiths and sects to cut the time I spend at my actual workplace to almost zero. And here’s the good bit, I still get paid my full salary.

For instance, I could claim adherence to the ultra-weird Ukrainian Christian sect known as the Dukhobors. There are apparently around 40,000 still living in Canada.

One of the pillars of their faith is the fact that they reject any interference from the government of the country in which they reside.

They make their own laws – and one of the more bizarre of these is the quaintly weird habit of removing all their clothes in public. No, I’m not making this up. At work it would give a whole new meaning to the term ‘dress-down day’.

Should I decide to become a Dukhobor, I would turn up at the bank, stark naked, and my manager couldn’t do a blind thing about it. However, I might make one conciliatory gesture towards convention by wearing the company tie.

The EHRC also decreed that symbols of religion, caste, and so forth, could be worn at all times, without fear of being told to remove them, when the individual’s religious or moral code required this.

Fair enough, but it just occured to me that if I did join every religion or sect available there could be an unfortunate side effect. The wearing of metal crosses, stars of David, all the various Zoroastrian symbols, druids clunk, plus goodness knows what else... would send any airport metal detector into meltdown. Could be tricky.

Another effect of the ruling that needs clarification concerns the hospital bed decree, that staff can pray – chant – whatever, over a patient, as long as he or she has no objection... even if he/she is unconscious.

So if I go for the hard option of joining as many religions and sects as will have me, does this mean that if I am croaking my last in a hospital bed... I will have representatives of various creeds chanting away over me? That’s enough to make me reconsider for a start. But having said that, if by then I am too far gone to care, it shouldn’t matter who is competing for my immortal soul.

But one thing does occur to me if, as I suspect, I am far from a minority of one in seeing the attraction of adopting a multi-faith persona; what will happen to the economy of the continent if thousands of people throughout Europe decide to do the same?

But having said that, I still think it’s a most attractive option – and – if I play my cards right... adding up all my multifarious days of religious observance, plus all of our many public holidays, I could actually end up in credit – and my employer would find himself obliged to pay me overtime for staying away from work.

Brilliant, let’s go for it... where do I sign?