The Bull, the Hindus, Mad Cow and the Act

Here are a couple of stories illustrating different religious exercise legal standards in the US and Europe. According to a British High Court, the right of a Hindu community to keep alive a venerated bovine-TB infected bull trumps the state's interest in putting down the cow to prevent spread of the disease. AGK thinks that in the US (standard: such state action is only unconstitutional if it substantially burdens the exercise of religion) the case would have gone the other way. Is Europe now more protective of religious practice than the US? Do the Brits realize that, via the back door of the European Convention of Human Rights, they now have a written bill of rights, possibly more constraining of the state than is the case in the US?

The other case--girl cannot claim same right as Hindus to wear a chastity ring in school against contrary compulsion by school because ring not intrinsic Christian symbol--is interesting too. Who gives the judge the right to decide what constitutes intrinsic religious symbols? Why not assert right to free speech, which surely could have been a winner in the US?