I agree the exemptions are disgraceful. I have no problem with respecting other peoples religious convictions either.
I do however have a problem where they expect the law of the land to be modified to accommodate those convictions, and an even bigger one, where it actually is. I also accept this may not be, and indeed clearly is not, everyone's view.
Maybe I grew up reading too much Enid Blyton and Arthur Ransome, but I have a far bigger problem with the inequitableness of laws which ban something that reasonable people might reasonably do (in this discussion that thing being "carry a knife", for purposes of e.g. splicing rope, chopping kindling, scoring marks in trees to mark a path through the unmarked forest, skining rabbits, whittling small animal figures out of bits of wood, sharpening pencils, making pilot marks for sailing into the hidden harbour, retrieving hot potatoes from the fire pit, cutting the cords that the mysterious kidnappers used to tie up three of the other Famous Five, etc etc) on the grounds that other less nreasonable people might want to use the same item for stabbing people. So to me it's absolutely fine if Sikhs are carrying sharpened letter openers around - provided it's clearly understood that the law will come down on them like an absolute tonne of bricks if they
do decide to start a fight with one - they've just managed to get a little local exemption for a law that should never have been imposed on them in the first place.
