If I were Nadia Eweida, I would be starting to think that the whole world had gone completely mad, writes Boris Johnson in the UK Telegraph. Nadia is the British Airways worker who was suspended because she wore a tiny cross round her neck for work. Everyone took her side, in 2006. The entire British press was convulsed with indignation. There were debates in the House of Commons.
The prime minister of the day, Tony Blair, weighed in with all the preachy solemnity he could muster, and advised BA to think again. Come off it, we all said: you can't stop people wearing a necklace with a cross around it.
For goodness' sake - we still have a House of Commons that kicks off daily proceedings with a series of Christian prayers. We have a judicial system that invites witnesses to swear on the Bible, and the same ritual can be observed taking place in the Leveson inquiry.
Such was the general pop-eyed outcry that BA eventually caved in. After about a year of dither, it changed the rules so as to allow all members of staff to wear a discreet religious symbol. So I bet you were as stunned as I was to learn yesterday that the case was not over - and that the government appears to be backing BA's original decision.
Poor Eweida was effectively dismissed and humiliated for wearing a cross round her neck; and yet BA never accepted that its rules were discriminatory, or that she was in any way disadvantaged because of her faith.
She just wants the airline to accept that it was unfair and wrong, and the irony is that she has now been driven to take her case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And the further irony is that the British Government - a British Government whose individual members, if asked, would almost certainly agree that BA was loony in its decision - is now apparently backing that decision and opposing Eweida.
FULL STORY Common sense needed in British Airways crucifix debate (Canberra Times)