Hunt- excellent post. And it’s not just government. A corporation can’t decide that Muslim employees cannot take their break at whatever time the fast ends during Ramadan because “we don’t make exceptions”. If employees generally get to decide that they can eat lunch at 1 pm or 2 pm or 4 pm or whenever it works for them, deciding that this decision-making won’t work for the sake of breaking a fast won’t fly with the courts.
There’s an interesting case in New Jersey right now of a Muslim employee at a hospital who refused to wear gloves to cover her henna tattoos. The hospitals policy is that all tattoos must be covered. They don’t ban tattoos- they just don’t allow them to be visible to patients. Since this employee had them on her hands, her supervisor told her to wear gloves and she refused, citing a religious accommodation.
It’s a fascinating case, since there are very few religious leaders willing to state that henna tattoos are a requirement (a custom among certain groups at certain times- yes.) There are also very few people in the medical field who consider wearing gloves a hardship since most of them see them as beneficial (protecting THEM from patients and not the reverse).
Carry on.