Religion and law round-up – 5th April

A quiet week for L&R news, but a busy one for choristers and parliamentary candidates

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Religion and hospital food

Frequent travellers often advocate requesting for the “vegetarian option” when choosing airline food as this deemed of better quality than the non-vegetarian alternatives. Now, it seems as though there is a variant of this urban myth with regard to hospital food, where ordering the halal or vegetarian option is a route to more edible fare. However, the Swindon Advertiser reported that a patient at the Great Western Hospital who attempted this ruse was refused halal food because he was “of the wrong religion”, despite having been provided with it on earlier occasions.

The paper clarified that “meals and refreshments at the hospital are provided by external hospitality agency Carillion, who are contracted to provide catering and cleaning services at the site. Carillion is not directly employed by the hospital but by the building’s owner, Semperian, under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract.” With all these taking their cut of the funding, the alleged poor food quality should not be a surprise.

A Carillion spokesman said: “[w]e apologise … for any offence caused. We are working closely with the Trust to ensure all patients receive their preferred choice of meal” and the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said “they will be reminding Carillion and medical staff that discrimination is unacceptable.” We doubt, however, whether this would fall within the ambit of the 2010 Act, and wonder what pastoral assistance a non-Muslim hospital chaplain might be expected to provide.

Religion and cake decoration

The case involving the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and Ashers Bakery, which refused to bake a cake with an image of Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie below the motto Support Gay Marriage, was heard over three days last week at Belfast County Court. DJ Brownlie announced that she was reserving judgment because “It is not a straightforward area of the law”. Continue reading