> How exactly are you supposed to prove that an opinion was honestly held? In the UK at least, it involves convincing the court that it was reasonable to have

> How exactly are you supposed to prove that an opinion was honestly held? In the UK at least, it involves convincing the court that it was reasonable to have that opinion based on what you knew or believed to be true at the time. This may be a bad thing for people that honestly hold completely irrational prejudices, but the main challenge for the defence is proving the statement is best understood as an opinion (and not a false assertion of fact). The 'honesty' tends to follow by default, unless the other side can provide a more compelling alternative "it's convenient that your 'intuition' and an unrelated event four years earlier lead you to publicly voice suspicions about my client for the first time whilst you were competing directly with him for promotion". (I assume the same is true of "sincerely held religious belief" in the US: pretty much any testimony or evidence of religious belief can be accepted unless it seems like a particularly creative excuse, completely unravels under cross-examination or is contradicted by evidence of that individual holding completely different religious beliefs?)