Jobcentre Apologizes For Anti-Jedi Discrimination 615
An anonymous reader writes "Chris Jarvis, 31, is described as a Star Wars fan and member of the International Church of Jediism. Said church's intergalactic hoodie uniform is at odds with the strict doctrine of the Department for Work and Pensions, which may require Jobcentre 'customers' to remove crash helmets or hoods for 'security reasons.' Following his ejection, Jarvis filled out a complaint form and within three days got a written apology from branch boss Wendy Flewers. She said: 'We are committed to provide a customer service which embraces diversity and respects customers' religion.'"
We Todd Dead (Score:5, Informative)
Unbelievably stupid indeed. I see Jedis take off their hoods all the time in the movies. Why can't he? The only force-user who's adamant about keeping his hood on is the Emperor, in which case you'd best throw this guy down a shaft now and save us all a lot of trouble.
Re:What BS! (Score:5, Informative)
I think if his boss checked the Jedi Church's web site, it would have been clear that this guy was full of BS. Quote, "The Jedi church has no official doctrine or scripture." In other words, the Jedi Church does not require its members to wear hoods. This guy is taking a satirical jab at organized religion a bit too far. Here's a link to the Jedi Church's page about doctrine.
http://www.jedichurch.org/jedi-doctrine.html
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:5, Informative)
No non-profit organizations in the United States have to pay taxes.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
freeballer (Score:2, Informative)
How sad, that someone is so stuck on an old movie they pretent its a religion.
Its not discriminating against religion, because much like all others, its made up!
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, not all non-profit organizations are tax exempt.
Second, non-profit organizations that are tax exempt have to prove that they're non-profit by disclosing their finances. That is, except churches, who are considered non-profit on religious grounds, and don't even have to disclose finances to their members, much less anyone else. In fact, they don't even have to file to be treated as tax exempt.
Then again, whether churches are even non-profit is also very much arguable.
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:3, Informative)
I think religion started as a way to explain phenomena that were not understood. To give the feeling of control over things that were random. People see patterns where there are none, and really like their world to be structured and safe.
It was then used by those in power to control the population.
The history of the church is a prime example. I found this program very interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ntrqh [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:4, Informative)
Holy crap!
I was about to post to say you were full of shit on this one, so went to the IRS site to get a reference, and it turns out you're right.
"Religious organizations" still have to do all the paperwork that regular non-profits do, but there's a special exemption for "churches" that waive all these requirements. They don't even have to pay the $150 a year that we have to.
The IRS has a handy summary Q&A [irs.gov] explaining how it works.
They have to obey certain rules, such as they're not allowed to transfer Church property to private individuals for less than market value (but nothing prohibits the church from owning a private jet that's used solely by Pat Robertson, for example).
Also, the church is prohibited from spending a "substantial part of its activity" in attempting to influence legislation, nor may it interfere in political campaigns. Of course, these rules are blatantly violated by large churches all the time.
There's even special rules for churches limiting the IRS's authority to audit them.
Damn.
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:3, Informative)
The reference would be section 501(c) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a decent write-up.
Also see the other reply to my post.
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:2, Informative)
> So true.
WTF do you think this is, Twitter?
If you can't add to the conversation, just STFU, OK? Don't be polluting the page with "I agree"s and "So tragic"s and shit like that.
You! Over there, with the seven digit ID. Yes you! This means you too.
Re:He could have fixed it with a wave of the hand (Score:4, Informative)
I dug deeper into the nested links and found this, so I'm updating my previous post:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/10/09/jedi_knights_achieve_official_recognition/ [theregister.co.uk]
"Update
An official from the National Statistics office had called us up to complain about the story. Apparently they've been getting a load of phone calls asking if Jedi Knight is officially a religion.
This is the official line: the Census does not provide recognition to any religion in the official statistics nor does it attempt to define religion. The list that you can see by checking out the pdf file above is merely a list of possible answers that people have been known to put in the box marked religion.
As such, Jedi Knight is not officially recognised as a religion."
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:2, Informative)
ok, go read about the Pilgrims.... the Puritans who fled the CofE so they could do their own thing...
then go check out the constitution of Connecticut, from which the US Constitution was modeled...
MOST of the founding father were evangelical christians... if i had some spare time i could quote which ones, but i have a life.. mostly all of them no doubt owned slaves... which is hard to reconcile with most interpretations of the Christian religions, hence this deist movement...
the FIRST ACT of the First Continental Congress was to open with a prayer:
"O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, (yadda yadda) look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee.
To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care
(wait for it)
Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior."
(entire text here http://chaplain.house.gov/archive/continental.html )
Sounds Christian to me.
Ben Franklin, at the Constitutional Convention, said: "...God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"
John Adams stated so eloquently during this period of time that; "The general principles on which the fathers achieved Independence were
John Quincy Adams answered the question as to why, next to Christmas, was the Fourth of July this most joyous and venerated day in the United States. He answered: "...Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?"
The First Amendment was not to keep religion out of government. It was to keep Government from establishing a 'National Denomination" (like the Church of England). As early as 1799 a court declared: "By our form of government the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on the same equal footing." Even in the letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut (from which we derive the term "separation of Church and State") he made it quite clear that the wall of separation was to insure that Government would never interfere with religious activities because religious freedom came from God, not from Government.
read it here: http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and one of the three men most responsible for the writing of the Constitution declared:
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is their duty-as well as privilege and interest- of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
Still sounds like a Christian nation.
QED motherfucker
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:5, Informative)
1) I think even Jefferson would object to being called an "atheist with a philosophical bent." Deism != atheism. He professed a belief in a God of some type, though he disagreed with most of the core theologies of Christianity. Washington, whether he was a deist or a Christian, was certainly not an atheist.
2) Why do you keep using that word? I do not think it means what you think it means. The early Americans were eager to avoid a state church, such as Anglicanism, not to avoid churches. The issue was not, for them, that "religious people" might unduly affect the political process, but that the government not require adherence to a particular church. The word "establishment" in "establishment of religion" is a verb, not a noun; they were concerned about not creating (establishing) a state religion, not fighting "the establishment." Also, "respecting" is like "regarding" or "concerning," not "being nice to." They didn't want to ensure that respect was never paid to any religion, but that the government not dictate what people could and could not believe. Point is, it's about not forcing people to adhere to one faith, not about treating any/all faiths or lack thereof execrably.
Apologies if you knew all that, but your post made it seem like you were saying "the government shouldn't make decisions based on a positive attitude toward the established (Christian) religion," which I think is an incorrect reading on all counts.
Re:He could have fixed it with a wave of the hand (Score:5, Informative)
Most religions don't adhere that closely to their sacred texts. They 'interpret' them to mean something quite different, which changes over time. [...] Compare, for example, "On the seventh day, God rested." -> "Everyone has to take a day off once every seven days."
Umm... try Exodus 20:8-11 --
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
or Exodus 23:12 --
For six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your home-born slave and the resident alien may be refreshed.
or Exodus 31:14-15 --
You shall keep the sabbath, because it is holy for you; everyone who profanes it shall be put to death; whoever does any work on it shall be cut off from among the people. For six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall be put to death.
or Deuteronomy 5:13-14 --
For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work--you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.
etc.
I don't think these passages require much "interpretation" to get to the idea that everyone needs to take a day off every seventh day... do you? Sounds pretty darn explicit to me.
Re:Fuck exceptions for religion (Score:3, Informative)
The University of Utah and BYU are light years apart. Utah is a normal public university. There's less partying than most schools because there are lots of Mormons (although they drink too when they're 18 and away from home for the first time) and most students work full time jobs. Salt Lake City is a normal, progressive city. Our liquor laws are strict but not more so than other states (Pennsylvania, Kansas, South Carolina IIRC have similarly restrictive laws).
BYU is in Provo, which is probably the most conservative city in the country. It's owned by the church so they have strict requirements for dress, behavior, cohabitation, etc. But it's a religious school. What would you expect? You don't have to go there. That's for people that have chosen that specific lifestyle and religion.
Life for an average, non-Mormon Utahn is pretty much the same as everywhere else. In California or Texas the government is still run by corporation-loving religious nutbags. Whether they're Catholic, Muslim, Baptist, Mormon, or any other religion makes little difference to me. And in Utah the predominant religion actually focuses on keeping families together and making sure everybody is working hard and staying honest. So we have little crime and people take care of each other.
I'm not originally from Utah, and I'm as un-Mormon as they come but GP poster is just whining. The type of control the LDS Church exerts on politics in Utah is almost always benign, sometimes beneficial, and in other cases they're pretty much exactly like any other large, powerful religion.
If he doesn't want to live in Utah County and be around those family-first freedom-spouting nutjobs, there's a perfectly nice, normal city 30 miles to the north. He can commute.