IT IS HARD TO MAKE THIS UP – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:   Maybe Britain should stick to royal weddings.  They do it so well.  When it comes to legal decisions...uh, there is room for improvement.  From London's Daily Mail:

Rules to prevent religious discrimination can now also be used to protect a belief in the BBC’s ethos of public service broadcasting, a tribunal has ruled.

Its extraordinary decision elevates the BBC’s core principle to a place in the law equivalent to Christianity.
And the move leaves the way clear for long-serving employee Devan Maistry to sue the Corporation for wrongful dismissal.

South African-born Mr Maistry, who worked for the BBC Asian Network, says he suffered discrimination for six years until he was dismissed last year.

He has filed a claim for ‘religious or belief discrimination’, which allegedly took place against his philosophical view that ‘public service broadcasting has the higher purpose of promoting cultural interchange and social cohesion’.

Birmingham employment tribunal chairman Pam Hughes decided Mr Maistry has a worthy case, and gave him the right to a full hearing later this year.

COMMENT:  Oh dear, oh dear.  What will come next?  Our Lady of CNN?  The Church of NPR?  Temple Beth Fox?  True, the BBC has long been more a religious experience than a news operation, but this carries things to an absurd level.

Just a second.  I want to turn on the morning service at CNBC. 

May 9, 2011