RELIGION (or perhaps the passionate, protective sense of identity that religions engender) has an extraordinary way of triggering disputes about matters that make no difference in the real world. Take the heated arguments that have broken out in Denmark, and far beyond, over this week's ban on the ritual slaughter of animals by Jewish or Muslim rules. Such slaughter is already banned in at least five European countries. There are no slaughterhouses which use the ritual method in Denmark, because there is not enough local demand to keep such a facility going; people who want to eat ritually slaughtered meat simply import the product, and they face no obstacle. Yet Dan Jorgensen, Denmark's Food and Ariculture minister, finds himself in the middle of a storm. It's rather confusing for an affable politician who is more used to plaudits than brickbats. He has won praise for his previous animal-welfare initiatives, which include curbs on long-distance transport of livestock and a ban on docking piglets’ curly tails.

His latest initiative is the prohibition of animal slaughter without first rendering the beasts insensitive to pain with a bolt-gun or some other method. The move was welcomed by many Danes, who think that causing unnecessary suffering to animals on their journey from farm to dinner table is a throwback to darker times. But it provoked the ire of some of Denmark’s religious minorities which might now attempt to get the move reversed by the European Court for Human Rights.

As elsewhere in the world, Denmark’s Jews and Muslims frequently find themselves at odds. But on this matter, they are in step. Both feel that the law disregards their religious traditions which prescribe that beasts should be dispatched quickly (and, they say, virtually painlessly) with the slash of a blade to the throat. The ban on halal and kosher slaughtering also impinges on the similar practices of one of Denmark’s tiniest religious minorities, the Mandaens, an ancient Persian gnostic sect.

Mr Jorgensen retorts that the type of ritual slaughter that has just been proscribed has not taken place in Denmark for years. And as to his opponents’ claim that freedom of religion is being infringed, he replies that nothing stops people buying ritually-slaughtered meat from abroad. Moreover, Sweden and Norway, which have already banned the practice, are "known as remarkably tolerant countries". All living creatures, the minister says, “must be treated decently...in the stable, during transport and when they’re slaughtered.".

But the religious minorities and their advocates see it differently. Lisbet Christoffersen, a religion professor, says the new measure is “a forceful assault” on the rights of minority faiths in Denmark. A spokesman for Danish Halal, an umbrella organisation for 52 Islamic groups, says that even though halal was not actually practised in Denmark, the ban was “too big a step to take”.

Some Jews also slammed the prohibition as a deliberate crackdown on minority rights. A Danish Jewish leader, Finn Schwartz, said he did not believe the move was prompted by anti-Semitism, but it was an arbitrary measure which should have been discussed in Parliament. Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, head of the European Conference of Rabbis, said the Danish measure was a "further erosion of religious liberties...in Europe."

Imagine the furore if (as has been discussed in several European countries) a serious attempt were made to stop something that does actually happen, the circumcision of baby boys.