Current Events
A Sharper, Bigger Cake Knife is Fine ... But a Small Kirpan is a Threat?
ERIC RASSBACH
Last week the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans (Louisiana, USA) heard a major case concerning the clash between religious liberty and federal security policies.
The case concerns Kawaljeet Kaur Tagore, an IRS accountant who was fired because she wore a kirpan to work after she underwent Sikh 'baptism'. The kirpan is a Sikh article of faith similar to a short knife that Khalsa Sikhs must wear at all times;
Ms Kawaljeet Kaur's kirpan was similar to a small butter knife both in size and sharpness.
An arm of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Protective Service (FPS) said Kawaljeet could not enter the federal building in downtown Houston because she was wearing the kirpan. She refused to take it off in accordance with the beliefs of Sikhism and was then fired by her employer, the IRS.
The worst thing about the case is that FPS allows all kinds of far sharper knives into the Houston federal building, including cake knives, box cutters, and very sharp maintenance tools. In essence FPS and the IRS are saying that having cake at employee birthday parties is more important than the First Amendment right to exercise one’s religion. That stands American values on their head.
The remarkable development in the past week is that the feds are now *admitting* that they got it wrong all along.
In the runup to their day in court, the feds revealed a new policy that had apparently been in the works for months: not only will there be no categorical ban on religious items like Kawaljeet's kirpan, but FPS also has to make an extra effort to allow in religious items that pose no danger to federal buildings.
This new policy was embodied in a FPS Directive that went into effect last year but was kept under seal at the government’s request until days ago. The policy contains specific provisions to deal with Sikh religious objects, but it is designed to accommodate *all* religious groups who do not want to give up their religious identity when they walk through the door of a federal building. In short, Kawaljeet Kaur -- whose lawsuit surely led to the issuance of the Directive -- has already won a major victory for the religious freedom of not just Sikh-Americans, but believers of all faiths.
The Fifth Circuit appeal was argued by Scott Newar, a prominent Houston civil rights attorney who has been co-counsel with the Becket Fund and the Sikh Coalition in representing Ms. Kawaljeet Kaur.
People of good will of all faiths should support her effort to vindicate her rights as an American citizen.
Here’s hoping the Fifth Circuit does too.
The author is Deputy General Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
[Courtesy: The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Edited for sikhchic.com]
February 12, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Aryeh Leib (Israel), February 19, 2013, 5:27 AM.
While I'm glad to see that an FPS directive has been formulated to deal with the issue, I can still see the logic in the previous policy - and the title of the article alludes to it. While certainly being sharper and potentially more dangerous, the fact remains that the stated purpose of a "cake" knife is to cut cake, box cutters are to cut boxes (911 notwithstanding!), while a kirpan, to the uninitiated observer, appears to be a personal weapon to be used against another person - and the present prohibition would seem to reflect this mind state. It strikes me that Sher made a more cogent point in a previous post on this subject, when he pointed out the absurdity of a restaurant serving a patron a couple of alcoholic drinks, and then bringing him a steak dinner - complete with a sharp, serrated steak knife!
2: Jespal Singh Brar (Lodi, California, U.S.A.), February 27, 2013, 12:39 AM.
A kirpan should not be made a caricature by abbreviating it or blunting it to the point that it is no longer a kirpan. It is not a ritualistic object. And, it is not a butter knife.