Thursday, December 18, 2008

Muslim Woman Jailed Over Refusal To Remove Head Scarf In Court

I was all for it, imagining it would be a case of someone trying to enter a court under a burqa or niqab, but Lisa Valentine was wearing a hijab: a scarf over her hair, ears and neck... you could see who she was and it would have been simplicity itself to give her a pat-down around the scarf to be sure she wasn't hiding anything in it, if you wanted to go that far.

I can see requiring the removal of ordinary headgear as a sign of respect for the court, but this* is too much. Their religion may be a completely made-up sham, but they believe in it. She has a religious conviction that does not impinge on anyone else's right to security in the court, and I say she should be allowed to wear it. The same goes for a yarmulke, by the way. That's one of the uses of the 1st Amendment.

*if she got violent in her protesting of the court order, I take it all back. Get rowdy in court and you go to jail, period.

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