Friday, December 19, 2008

Take Off Your Hat

A Muslim woman was recently jailed in Georgia after refusing to take off her hijab in court. She says in the article linked above that she felt stripped of her civil, human rights.

Without looking into the details too much, I would suggest that this is not a civil rights issue, rather it is a Lemon Test/1st Amendment issue. The immediate question I had when I read this was, is this act - sentencing a person to jail for 10 days for refusing to remove headgear something that is neutral with respect to religion? If I went in wearing a Detroit Tigers hat, would I be jailed for refusing to remove it? Does this act have a legitimate secular reason (I would think there is one)? Does it place favor of one religion over another? Based on the facts (and the fact that she uttered an expletive after being told she would have to remove it), I would suggest that this is not the outrage that people might want to see it as.

For those who favor separation of church and state, as the Court has explained the 1st Amendment does, this interpretation of how I understand the situation to be is right - strange for a Georgia judge, I know.

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