Religious vs disability accommodations

[Razzle]

I suppose we should look on theists with these issues as victims. If they have been pretty much forced into believing this stuff and literally can't stop, and are too scared to analyse them, that's not their fault.

Exactly. I think people from religiously dominated cultures (which I'm not) are so used to having to focus on religious people getting their own way unfairly and claiming to be victimised when they're not, and trying to convince them that they're not, that they often forget these people are indeed victims when requesting irrational things - just not of the things they think they're victims of.

I think this is interesting. Who would agree that legally equating religious "issues" with actual mental disorders is pretty much saying indoctrination is psychologically damaging? It seems to me that the next logical step after making this law would be to crack down on indoctrination, as it has been legally equated to abuse. That is probably just me pipe dreaming again. Probably not practical, unfortunately.

Not necessarily. Irrational religious beliefs don't always cause distress or functional impairment (some actually improve mood and daily functioning, arguably), but whenever workplace accommodations have to be in place before a person can get or keep a particular job, it would suggest they are causing them functional impairment, and therefore do represent psychological damage for that person.

Also, it's not the case that when laws cover more than one demographic factor, like religious belief and disability, they are admitting any particular commonality between them. They are admitting there is at least one commonality between them that makes them eligible on some principle for protection under the same law, but exactly what that commonality and principle was deemed to be by the law makers at the time is a question that could only be answered by looking at what the decisive arguments were.

The fact that religion, race, sexual orientation and disability are all covered by several different types of anti-discrimination laws, and in that sense are legally equated, doesn't mean there was underlying their passing a view that religions are kinds of disability, or that sexual orientation is a kind of disability, or that sexual orientation is a kind of religion, for that matter. The real reason they're legally equated in those cases is something that even some of the people passing those laws often disagree about - e.g. some think that whether the demographic factor is a choice or not is crucial, others think it's irrelevant.