Don't get Cross

I ran across this last weekend and it has been niggling away at my subconscious since then, normally I avoid health and safety gone mad issues (it's for the good of my health) but this crossed my path and I wondered if this was a deliberate attempt to alienate the population of England or merely another case of officious bureaucracy having a go at a weak seeming target (Christians)

A Christian nurse said she was being threatened with disciplinary action after she refused to take off a necklace bearing a cross.

Shirley Chaplin said she believed The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust Hospital was trying to prevent her from expressing religious beliefs although she had been told health and safety concerns were behind the order.

Mrs Chaplin, 54, from Exeter, said: "For about 30 years I have worked in the NHS and nursed patients day and night and on no occasion has my cross caused me or anyone else any injury - and to my knowledge, no patient has ever complained about me wearing it."

"The Trust even refused to test the 'breaking strain' on the necklace."

Mrs Chaplin, who is due to retire in eight months, added: "Everyone I have ever worked with has clearly known I am a Christian: it is what motivates me to care for others."

She asked if the cross could be pinned to her lapel but said the trust would only accept it pinned inside her pocket.

Mrs Chaplin claimed other members of staff have been allowed to wear necklaces.

"This smacks of double standards and appears to discriminate against Christians.

"This blatant piece of political correctness amounts to the marginalising of employees' personal human rights, a blanket 'secularising and neutralising' of the NHS intended to stop Christians from expressing their faith in the public services of the NHS."

Mrs Chaplin is being supported by her minister, the Rev John Eustice, of Christ Church, Exeter, and has sought advice from the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) which has instructed human rights barrister Paul Diamond, who advised Caroline Petrie, the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient but later reinstated.

Now leaving aside the fact that if this was against any of the " favoured of the state" there would be blue murder being screamed from the rooftops by the Righteous this does strike me as a little bit odd. Not that I don't put it past the Righteous to have a go at mainstream values at any given moment, but because in a lot of cases you can sort of see the point (a twisted, weasily ordained, soul sucking, life tarnishing point, but still a point) even if it's as ridiculous as a "For the cheeldren" type of point.

This is what I find suspicious. Granted 90% of these Political Correctness Gone Mad stories usually have a sensible (for a given value of sensible) explanation, but this coupled with the claim that they didn't crack down on other staff wearing necklaces makes me think that this was a deliberate attempt to persecute Christianity (or at least bring about a climate where they can persecute Christianity by established practice)
Now many think Christians are an easy target relying on the Gentle Jesus meek and mild image that many Christians themselves adhere too. Whilst completely forgetting that Jesus was a guy who took a whip into a holy place and beat seven kinds of shit out of some corrupt moneychangers. This is something I suspect our corrupt leaders don't know or prefer to forget. So sooner or later attempts to back Christianity into a corner will backfire spectacularly. You can see the beginnings of this in the number of court cases coming up where the Righteous have found that Christians can get very litigious and angry when faced with attempts to interfere with their beliefs.

Now the paranoid side of me wonders just where all this is going, is it just that they can't help themselves (probably) or is there a method to the madness (Common Purpose)

My paranoia is growing.