UK - Christianity declining, Atheism rising, but so is Islam...

[Ben Davis]

I think it is this be-nice-to-religious-nutjobs attitude that causes that most problems with the abuse of religious freedom rights.

I'm certainly not advocating being nice to nutjobs. It's the nutjobs who need fighting. We simply need to be aware that (in the UK) the nutjobs are the minority and that we harm the fight against human rights abuses by misrepresenting the majority. Most UK muslims also want to stop the nutjobs and we need to use the political system to enable them to fight their battles effectively.

After all, how far do you let the concessions go before it gets too far?

Too far, to steal an expression, would be when their hand reaches my nose.

How do you make these concessions for so many different religions and beliefs?

By having a secular system which places no individual religion above any other. The UK has done a pretty good job of that and while there have been some bad decisions made over the last decade/15yrs (e.g. allowing an increase in the number of religious schools), we're still amongst the most progressive nations when it comes to freedom of religious expression. The result has been that most religious people in the UK are also progressive.

How do apply human rules to those who believe themselves to be above the other humans?

Well, those are the nutjobs. The best thing to do is to legislate so that they don't get to impose their beliefs on others then act on that legislation, evenhandedly. That's why the law needs to be carefully considered and representative of the realities of the situation. Hence my opposition to misrepresentation of muslims in the UK.

The basis of all law including the religious freedom is based on our human rights and in almost every situation religious freedom breaks these.

Very far from the truth. For example:

1. most muslim women in the UK don't wear hajib or burkha however they are free to do so if they wish. The issue is 'why' they wish to wear them: that's where the fight against institutionalised sexism is happening, and being won by feminists/progressives/egalitarians.

2. most children of religious parents attend secular schools where students are free to study a broad range of curricula with limited interference (although I understand there are trends of 'preferred' studies in certain cultures, often where parents have a vocational, irreligious preference for their children). Extremely rarely are parents instructing schools that their children can't attend certain classes for religious reasons.

So I say either make strict laws to ensure one person cannot impose their beliefs on others or use separate rules for those who choose to identify themselves not as humans but as friend-to-imaginary-beings.

The UK has both, the former in our legal interpretation of the Human Rights Act and the second in our Mental Health Act. In the overwhelming majority of circumstances, both pieces of legislation are working well in protecting all UK nationals.