Freedom to worship

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” That opening line to the first amendment of the United States’ constitution is usually summarized as separation of church and state. A value equally cherished in France where different religions have traditionally coexisted in harmony. Whether in France or the USA, the first test of separation of church and state often begins in the public school classroom.
In 1989 in France, two 14-year-old Muslims students were sent home for refusing to remove their religiously affiliated head scarves. In the years since then, the head scarf at school – and in the work place – has been an issue in France where 7-8 percent of the population is Muslim.
This month, French President Jacques Chirac announced that France must outlaw Islamic head coverings and other obvious religious items worn by the faithful such as Jewish yarmulkes and Christian crosses in schools. He also wanted personal religious symbols regulated in the work place. Chirac is afraid that religious fanaticism is gaining ground in France and that it challenges the separation of church and state.
“Secularism is one of the great successes of the Republic,” Chirac said.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith, formed at the government’s urging to improve ties between Muslim relationships, said instituting such a mandate would be viewed as a discriminatory move against the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, the wire story reported.
Ahmed Dolla, an immigrant from Egypt, said: “People always say that France is the country of freedom, but where’s the liberty if you ban the wearing of head scarves?”
After the schools are sanitized of religious apparel, Chirac wants to regulate the workplace – because having religious symbols in the work place is a “safety issue and interferes with dealing with clients.’
Could it happen here in America? In a country with a long tradition of Jewish boys with yarmulkes and Amish girls’ prayer coverings? Americans have a long history of recognizing and accepting differences in apparel for religious purposes.
And yet … this fall, in Oklahoma City, sixth-grader Nashala “Tallah” Hern, was suspended from a public school when she refused to remove her head scarf, according to a report from Reuters News Service. Hern said it would violate the way she observes her religion to remove it.
The school said that the scarf violated the dress code prohibiting the wearing of hats and other head coverings indoors – a rule implemented to stem gang-related activity. The Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil liberties group, has since then filed a suit on Hern’s behalf because the school refused to recognize the difference between gang related and religiously affiliated apparel.
“As I see it right now, I don’t think we can make a special accommodation for religious wear. You treat religious items the same as you would as any other item, no better, no worse,” said Ben Franklin Science Academy attorney D.D. Hayes. He added that, under the dress code, a Jewish child would not be allowed to wear a yarmulke, the skullcap traditionally worn by orthodox Jews, to school.
Is there an echo with a French accent in that reasoning? Only the next few years will tell.