We should limit expressions of religion and other philosophies, says Groningen University professor Fokko Oldenhuis

A tram conductor who wants to pin a cross to his uniform, a teacher who wants to wear her headscarf in class, a lawyer who refuses to stand up when the judges enter, and politician Geert Wilders who says that the Koran should be banned. These are expressions of religion and philosophies that continually lead to fevered discussions and eventually to court cases.
‘Expressing ideas and beliefs has gone too far’, thinks professor of religion and law Fokko Oldenhuis. It’s thus high time that the active expression of beliefs and philosophies in the public domain was curtailed, he states.
‘People are obsessed with their own convictions’, says Oldenhuis. ‘However, in public positions in particular, you should not lose sight of their representative nature. This applies just as much to a tram conductor driver as to a politician.
The tram conductor who wants to keep his cross is functioning on behalf of his employer, the municipality of Amsterdam, and a politician is fulfilling a role in the interests of the entire country.’ Nobody needs to turn into a boring grey mouse, continues Oldenhuis, but ‘religion and your own ideas may not be used within public positions to bulldoze everything and everyone you don’t agree with.’

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