I'm all for rights for time off work for important stuff like families and death, and genuine personal health problems, be they physical or mental, but religion can be abused. Anyone can jump on a bandwagon to claim time off, and people do and will. Times are hard for everyone at the moment, and to put more pressure on employers due to every reason that can be found just isn't fair. The snag is that the country is being held to ransom by people who want "rights" that basically demand being paid for not being at work under the banner of "political correctness."

I'm all for equality, but if it's genuine then it doesn't need to be put under the PC banner, just basic respect in life. Everyone should be equal in my book, no matter what race, political belief, or creed, or any other difference. What I don't agree with is bending over backwards for every instance of difference. We live in a Christian country (I don't practise religion), so we have Christian holidays. If I moved to a non-Christian country I wouldn't expect Christmas Day off as a right if that country didn't do that. My view is when in Rome do as the Romans do, and respect the ways of where you live. This is sometimes misconstrued as racism.

What I always found interesting about the World was that every country was so different. That is changing, and soon we will all be like the High Street in Britain; everywhere the same (except for the weather!).

Things used to work very well, but now we have created problems where there used to be no problems, due to over-sensitivity.

All the best,
TE.