British Airways Worker Suspended for Wearing a Cross

[»1587200]

BRITISH Airways has suspended a Christian woman who wears a necklace with a crucifix to work' date=' even though it allows Muslims and Sikhs to wear headscarves and turbans, a newspaper reported overnight.[/quote']A note, it was a cross not a crucifix. The difference is that a crucifix has Jesus on it, a cross does not.

 

So discuss. BA allows Muslim workers to wear turbans and have scheduled prayer times, yet this woman can't wear a cross?

 

Story @ News.com: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20588...0.html?from=rss

[Jimster]

The issue is not in regards to the cross. The issue is that BA's uniform is that no jewelry is to be seen on it's employees. The fact that the item in question is a cross has fueled this into yet another debate about religion.

 

If she wants to show this item of JEWELRY on herself so much, she should look for work outside of BA, where there is likely to be no restriction on jewlery.

[NBVegita]

The issue I think Syrus is bringing up is the fact that muslims are allowed to outwardly show religious symbols because they are "impractical to hide under uniform". And if they can do, This woman should be able to wear her cross out of her uniform.

 

My stand on the issue...I don't see why its such a big deal to wear your cross underneath your clothing. If you really love your religion, you don't need to wear it for the world to see. Wear it in your heart as thats all that matters. But that goes both ways. If you are really dedicated to your god, it shouldn't matter if you are wearing a turban, a cross, or anything at all. None of that matters in the least. Wearing a cloth on your head doesn't make you closer to god, neither does wearing a piece of metal on your chest.

[»1587200]

So what's the difference between a necklace and a bangle. I understand what the artical said about them usually being consealed under clothing, but do you really think a muslim woman would have been suspended for 3 weeks w/out pay for doing the same thing?

[NBVegita]

Either that or the woman should be allowed to wear a big hat that says "I <3 Jesus. He is teh l337."

[The Apache]

Either that or the woman should be allowed to wear a big hat that says "I <3 Jesus. He is teh l337."

 

rofl

[SeVeR]

I think the question should be: Does FOX News have a political agenda behind their selection and interpretation of stories and is this ethical?

[AstroProdigy]

If it was because it was a religious item then it's wrong, but if it's about not wearing jewelry, well this is standard practice in many businesses. At Starbucks where I worked you can't wear jewelry and they go as far as to ban tongue studs. If it's just about the dress code then there's no case to get angry about this. Even in high school you're not allowed to wear a cap even though it has no bearing on your learning. It's just one of those things that makes things look more professional.

 

What's with the overcomplicated reorganizing of the forums?

[»Ducky]

Is this a serious topic?

What a waste of time.

[SeVeR]

Fox News shouldn't even be allowed to be called News. It should be called the "Republican and Christian Perspective on Current Events that go through a Stringent Right Wing Selection Process". News channels should have no political affiliation causing them to promote certain stories to the forefront that are then intepretted in a way designed to provoke a right-wing response.

[»Ducky]

You can't have news without a political affiliation. This is impossible.

A newspaper in china writing a story on events in the states still will have a slant.

[SeVeR]

You can't have news without a political affiliation. This is impossible.

No it's not. Even it it were impossible a line could still be drawn to determine what level of opinion should be broadcast as news.

[Agent Smith]

Hey! You sound like Bill O'Reiley, what news station does he work for?

 

Name on news station that doesn't have ANY political bias.

[»Ducky]

No it's not. Even it it were impossible a line could still be drawn to determine what level of opinion should be broadcast as news.

Who's drawing this line? That person has a political slant.

Any opinion is slant, it's not a matter of levels.

[SeVeR]

Even the law is opinion, you can't avoid it, sometimes you have to trust in it.

[Aileron]

To rank the US new programs (In my opinion) by quality from best to worst, its: Fox, The Daily Show, CNN, local news, then MSNBC.

 

Fox is actually quite balanced. As a rule their talk shows feature two speakers of opposite opinions. Liberals think this is conservative because the liberal definition of "balance" is "interview the liberal and spend one sentence stating a straw-man version of the conservative opinion". Just last month, Fox interviewed Bush, the conservative president, and Clinton, the most recent liberal ex-president. Objectively, that is the highest possible balance possible without having two simultaneous presidents running the country.

 

And MSNBC are idiots. They interview no-name radicals, feature idiot topics even as important news is happening, and their journalists can't go 15 minutes on the air without saying something so prfoundly stupid as to embar!@#$%^&* themselves.

 

 

Back to the topic, both sides have their points, but the supervisor is being a prick. That cross isn't going to affect customer service or their professional image.

 

 

Astro, to answer your question, it all started on the Sunday before last. I was playing in Chaos Zone when I respawned, had a nearby 6 man turrent try to neg kill me and ran into a stray bomb. Being lamed three ways at once caused me to slightly lose my cool and when that happens I like to make a "agfpauiafa" type message. Unfortuneatly I depressed upon the keyboard of my laptop computer with a little to much force and damaged my hard-drive. Thus I no longer have access to a home computer and needed to step down as moderator pending a new computer or change in schedule to allow greater access to public computers. As such the admins are making this forum overcomplicated.

[SeVeR]

Fox is actually quite balanced.

Oh common! Considering your political views i'm not surprised you said this but during the Israeli/Hezbollah war did you see a single story on Fox about Israeli's killing civilians or was it all "Hezbollah fires thousands of rockets into Israel" or "Israeli soldier killed in vicious Hezbollah attack". What about when the UN referred to the US report on Iran as dishonest, it almost looked like Fox didn't even report it. I don't call it the Christian/Republican/Patriot propoganda channel because i feel like it. MSNBC is also a very poor reporter of news for some of the reasons you stated. Even CNN makes the odd gaff and shows some political allegiance but thats probably for ratings more than anything. If you want good news, look outside America, you'd be amazed how clear and unopinionated it is.

 

Believe me when i say its quite a shock to watch American News after coming from Europe.

[NBVegita]

You are way too judgemental. All news has a political lean. Read your articles on the bbc that you post. Everyone just loves to pick on the united states because we're easy to hate. Just last night I watched fox news for over 2 hours and all they did was interview and bash republicans. From campaign issues, to the war, to global and home land policies. Oh and maybe they could have attacked Rush a bit more. Not one republican walked away from the show not looking like an !@#$%^&*, and not one democrat walked away looking like one. Fox news is by no means leaning towards one side or the other. On each issue they might take a side. Isreal it was the "right wing" this time seems to be "left" But if they were your "Christian/Republican/Patriot propoganda channel" then why would they tear apart their "own party" on national television? Oh wait I'm sure this is just a huge conspiracy by the republican party to make the masses think that fox isn't in their pocket when it really is...because a few weeks before election its common knowledge that every party tries to break their creidbility on such issues on national tv, as much as possible...!@#$%^&* those sly republicans what will they think of next?

 

And for our exposure of Isreal, that was simple politics. Isreal = US ally. Hezbollah, since the early 80's has been backed by Iran (not on the best terms with us). Since the early 80's Hezbollah has conducted suicide bombings of western states, along with creating "hostage taking cells" designed to do nothing but take western hostages. "The party's rhetoric calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. It regards the whole of Palestine as occupied Muslim land and it argues that Israel has no right to exist." ...oh wait so they think our ally has no right to exist... And dispite U.N. resolution 1559 calling for the evactuation of foreign forces and demilitarization of malitias in lebanon in 2004 they still haven't. Then they kidnap two soldiers from isreal, and even if isreal killed civilians, use radical means in attacking isreal. And there is that age old debate that if your military personel will hide in civilian areas, and hide/launch weapons from that area that the civilians of that area are no longer safe under the rules of war. Of course they're not going to get the same respect that an ally would in our news.

[SeVeR]

Of course they're not going to get the same respect that an ally would in our news.

Respect? Any show of respect is based on opinion. I just want the facts reported without any prejudicial agenda. The news is suppoed to be factual, even you must realise that diluting vast quan!@#$%^&*ies of factual information with snippets of politically motivated opinion will bring about a certain level of acceptance towards those opinions. What does respecting Israel have to do with reporting facts? Selecting stories for the purposes of swaying public opinion towards one side of the conflict doesn't respect anyone.

 

And for our exposure of Isreal, that was simple politics. Isreal = US ally. Hezbollah, since the early 80's has been backed by Iran (not on the best terms with us).

You keep saying "us" and "our" as if we are all automatically aligned with President Bush's views on the world. But even if Bush is correct in his thinking it by no means warrants the news to be bias towards that view. So far Iran has done nothing wrong and yet through the media we have large amounts of people saying its ok to invade their country and kill hundreds of thousands of them. The reason: Bush's opinion on Iran.

 

All news has a political lean. Read your articles on the bbc that you post

What is the BBC leaning towards?

 

Everyone just loves to pick on the united states because we're easy to hate.

If i hated the US i wouldn't be living here. Exactly how is the US easy to hate? Is that your way of dismissing the criticism as unsubstantiated and overblown?

 

Just last night I watched fox news for over 2 hours and all they did was interview and bash republicans. From campaign issues, to the war, to global and home land policies.

From what you've said this sounds like a debate. Debates require intellectual, logical thinking whereby one side cannot disguise opinion as fact without being brought up on it. Quite frankly it is impossible for a Republican to defend himself in a debate these days. What i'm talking about is one-sided news broadcasts and story-selection for those broadcasts.

[NBVegita]

Its not a debate when the person interviewing you, twists your words til he makes a statement he likes, then when you try to make a rebuttle pulls the "oh well we're out of time, thanks for you time" and cuts you off the air.

 

And US = united states. And for our, for anyone who is an american citizen, it is OUR country.

 

And I'd really like to see an article without any political bias. If you show me one, I'll immediately stop my debate on this topic.

[SeVeR]

And I'd really like to see an article without any political bias. If you show me one, I'll immediately stop my debate on this topic.

Ok well i understand this is a trap because there can be many interpretations of the same article. But you'll see from this BBC article that the facts are what do the talking: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6092540.stm

 

Facts like this:

 

The second cascade had been installed two weeks ago with the knowledge of UN nuclear inspectors, the source said."The International Atomic Energy Agency has been fully aware of the issue and the inspectors are present in Iran," the source said.

 

...would go unreported on a Right Wing American News Provider. In fact most Americans probably still believe that Iran is hiding their enrichment program. Iran is defiant of US threats but completely open with the UN about their development of civilian reactors which for your interest are incapable of producing the plutonium isotope necessary for nuclear weapons.

 

You: And for our exposure of Isreal, that was simple politics. Isreal = US ally. Hezbollah, since the early 80's has been backed by Iran (not on the best terms with us).

Me: You keep saying "us" and "our" as if we are all automatically aligned with President Bush's views on the world.

You: And US = united states. And for our, for anyone who is an american citizen, it is OUR country.

Firstly i meant when you put "us" in lower case. But what i mean is you saying "our exposure of Israel" when you did no such thing, just like most Americans didn't. So who are you talking about? Then you say Iran is not on the best terms with "us". I presume you meant "us" this time because you put it in lower case. So again you're talking as if we are all enemies of Iran. You've described all Americans as being pro-Israel and anti-Iran. Where is this unwavering guarantee of national support for the government coming from?

 

Its not a debate when the person interviewing you, twists your words til he makes a statement he likes, then when you try to make a rebuttle pulls the "oh well we're out of time, thanks for you time" and cuts you off the air.

I did not see the debate so couldn't possibly judge your interpretation of it.

[NBVegita]

that article is very well writtin, and I will desist my debate on that matter.

 

As for the "us" it was just because I was tying fast that it was not "US". And as a majority, I will find the source again, but I don't have time now, as a country the majority of the citizens of united states do support isreal, and don't support Iran.

[Aileron]

Well, its weird internationally, because almost no-one in un-biased. Europe's goal is to create an EU to become the anti-US, and their media is anti-US to cater to that opinion. The bias in Middle Eastern news is obvious. Latin American news also has an anti-US flavour because of economic resentment.

 

I'd guess the best example of un-biased news is Japanese news, because they are strong enough economically that they don't resent the US and their culture hasn't developed with the idealogical need to always attack the big guy as Europe's has.

 

 

When I said Fox was un-biased I meant in the US-domestic political scene. Worldwide it is not, but I for one a, a US citizen. That means I'm on a side and shouldn't take a position in the middle. News for the un-biased internationally only appeals to those with no nationality or to marxists. The former doesn't exist and the latter is such a small minority that I've only met one of them online in a political forum.

[Yoink]

When I said Fox was un-biased I meant in the US-domestic political scene. Worldwide it is not, but I for one a, a US citizen. That means I'm on a side and shouldn't take a position in the middle. News for the un-biased internationally only appeals to those with no nationality or to marxists. The former doesn't exist and the latter is such a small minority that I've only met one of them online in a political forum.

Blind patriotism for the win. Adolf Hitler would be proud of you.

[NBVegita]

I think the biggest problem in the USA isn't patriotism, more so the lack there of. Seems like everyone who lives here doesn't respect their own country. If you don't like one the best countries to live in the in the entire world, gtfo.