Atheist Scot wins Catholic school job claim.

A teacher at a Catholic school in Scotland was improperly denied a chance to interview for another job because he is an atheist, an employment tribunal has ruled.

The employment tribunal ruled in early March that David McNab, a math teacher at St. Paul's Roman Catholic High School in Glasgow, was discriminated against because of his beliefs by a city commission that refused to allow him to interview for a pastoral care position at the school.

Tribunal Chairman Roderick MacKenzie concluded that McNab had been "unlawfully discriminated against" by the Glasgow City Council, which informed McNab that he had to be Catholic to apply for the job. The Tribunal said the council's action violated the European Convention on Human Rights, reported London's Daily Mail.

The Tribunal also concluded that the 1980 Scotland Education Act "does not permit the Roman Catholic Church to reserve certain posts for teachers who are Roman Catholics," reported The Herald, a Glasgow newspaper.

McNab hailed the ruling and said he was tired of "being treated like a second-class citizen because I was not a Catholic."

Denominational schools in Scotland are publicly funded, and hiring policies are regulated by the state.

According to a poll released in January, almost half of all Scots think public funding for religious schools should be abolished. Twenty-nine percent of Scottish Catholics agreed with that viewpoint.