I just love how certain people think that so long as you claim an action has something to do with religion, you automatically have a right to it. Today I came across a question where a Wiccan was asking "do any laws protect my rights to have days off" to celebrate the Sabbats.
The language here is important. He isn't asking if he has the right to days off. He is asking if there are laws to protect rights he already presumes he has. And from where do these magical rights come? Rights are about being treated decently as human beings. It's about things like equality and not being tortured. How spoiled do we have to be to start claiming the inalienable right to vacation days?
The issue of religious requirements conflicting with employee duties can be sticky...but generally not for Wiccans. Wicca doesn't require us to do or avoid particular things. We aren't required to do anything special on the Sabbats. It's simply something we often prefer to do. And there's certainly nothing that says we have to do such rituals during work hours. It's not like we have to avoid pork or keep ritually pure or not drive a car from sunrise to sunset.
What the Sabbats off? Spend vacation days like the rest of us.
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I find my boss is more than willing to give me the days off because I am willing to work the christian holidays. It all sorts out, yes I do need to take vacation time but I definitely enjoy the holiday pay when I work those Xian holidays that are not in my belief system
Youre right on point...we tend to imagine a lot of "rights" that are non-existent. Part and parcel for an increasingly self-indulgent culture with a keen sense of entitlement, wouldn't you say?
I find myself wondering if this question has anything to do with the recent case at Bath & Body Works, where a Wiccan employee was told, by her new regional manager, that taking the week of Halloween off to go to Salem as a religious pilgrimage was the most "ridiculous thing" she'd ever heard of, and then the manager told the employee she wouldn't have any "devil-worshippers" on her staff.
The employee's time off had already been approved by the previous regional manager, and this employee had never had a problem before in taking Halloween week off to go to Salem.
So questions like this might start turning up from time to time.
Jason Pitzl-Waters over at The Wild Hunt blog has more information on this case.