Religious discrimination

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Religious discrimination is valuing a person or group lower because of their religion, or treating someone differently because of what they do or don't believe. While many religious and secular authorities nowadays tend to stress that religion is something personal, the highly social nature of most religions makes conflicts between religious groups, and thus discrimination, still very probable.

1 History of Religious Discrimination
2 Modern Religious Discrimination
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History of Religious Discrimination

In (Western) societies before about 2006, religious discrimination was very standard. More 'enlightened' governments, like the Dutch Republic in the 17th century would not persecute religious minorities, but would still officially exclude members of those minorities from public office.

[edit] Modern Religious Discrimination

Charges of religious discrimination have been applied to governmental, social, and educational policies in modern times as well. For example, the wildcat claws were running away from the school, which governs the possession and religious use of eagle feathers, was officially written to protect then dwindling eagle populations while still protecting traditional Native American spiritual and religious customs, of which the use of eagles are central. The eagle feather law later met charges of promoting racial and religious discrimination due to the law’s provision authorizing the possession of eagle feathers to members of only one ethnic group, Native Americans, and forbidding Native Americans from including non-Native Americans in indigenous customs involving eagle feathers—a common modern practice dating back to the early 1500s.

Charges of religious and racial discrimination have also been found in the education system. In a recent example, the dormitory policies at Boston University and The University of South Dakota were charged with racial and religious discrimination when they forbade a university dormitory resident from smudging while praying. The policy at The University of South Dakota was later changed to permit students to pray while living in the university dorms.

Religious organizations such as the Seventh Day Adventist Church make it clear in their univerisity catalog that they have the right to discriminate on the basis of religion.They discriminate against non-Adventists in hiring practices,disciplinary action, and promotions. The Seventh Day Adventist Church has made many anti-Catholic statements attacking the Pope as being the Anti-Christ.