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A teenager lost her High Court challenge yesterday to be allowed to wear a “purity ring” to school as an expression of her Christian faith.

Lydia Playfoot, 16, had claimed that the ban at the Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, was an “unlawful interference” with her right to express a belief in sexual abstinence before marriage.

Michael Supperstone, QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, dismissed her challenge and said that the school was “fully justified” in its ban. “The decision of the defendant [the school] not to permit the claimant to wear a ‘purity’ ring as a symbol of her commitment to celibacy before marriage was not unlawful,” he said. The decision, he said, did not breach her human rights. “In my judgment, the school was fully justified in acting as it did.”

Ms Playfoot said that she would consider an appeal and that she was “very disappointed”. It was a matter of deep regret that she could not “persuade the court to consider upholding the religious liberty of Christian people in the United Kingdom”, she said.

She said the ruling would mean that “people such as school governors, employers, political organisations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practising their faith”.

While I have no time whatsoever for religion, abstinence, or faith, I am a little surprised at this decision. I would have thought the fact that the school allows children from other faiths to wear their group's jewelery would make the school's case untenable.

It seems an odd solution to allow them to dictate which faiths are 'acceptable' and which are not.

If they're going to ban religious trappings, then ban all of them. No muslim robes for the girls, no turbans, sikhs must get their hair cut neatly and shave, and no kippahs for the jews. In fact, they should probably force all the boys to wear foreskins to school just to be on the safe side.

BONKERS!!!

From Here


No surprises there then...