OT: religious identification

Whistle
1

The french panel of experts recommended banning
kids from wearing yamulkas in public school.
They argue that school should be a place where
children are shielded from the furies that
exist outside. Yet children wearing yamulkas
are insulted, called ‘dirty Jew,’ and one student
testified that anybody who wore a yamulka in
his new highschool would be lynched.

Yes, that’s the solution, isn’t it? Ban yamulkas!
If black kids were being insulted, we might
paint them white. We’ll protect them from
insults and misunderstandings, after all.

I believe people have a fundamental human right
to the free exercise of religion, and that includes
the right to operate in the public sector wearing
religious identification. Lines must be drawn somewhere,
obviously. A compelling state interest that simply
cannot be accomplished without interfering with
the right
is required to trump it. The Moslem lady
who insisted that she had a right to wear a veil
in her driver’s license photo was appropriately
defeated in court. But it’s obvious that orthodox
Jewish kids wearing a tiny skullcap doesn’t interfere
with any compelling state interest–and, very obviously,
there are far more effective and much less counterproductive
ways to protect Jewish kids from insults than
violating their human rights. This is a stride forward
for anti-semitism.

The argument that this is required to protect the
secular nature of the french state is very weak.
The obvious question: how is a Jewish kid’s wearing
a skull cap to school a threat to the secular nature
of the state? It’s hardly easy to think of a plausible
answer. The french generally mean by ‘the secular
nature of the state’ the separation between church
and state, I believe; how is a Jewish kid’s wearing
a skull cap to school a threat to the seperation of
church and state?

If the ‘secular nature of the state’ is interpreted so
broadly that this violates it, then the secular nature
of the state is a very bad thing, meaning something
like what it did under the Communists, and justifies
nothing. Indeed, we have a duty to oppose such
states, for they are predicated on the violation
of fundamental human rights.

Here is
an assault on fundamental human rights.
Also, I think it’s likely that if Jews were the
only people involved this wouldn’t have happened.
The government is after Moslems, but it
it doesn’t want the religious discrimination
to be obvious, so it’s forced to craft a law that includes
Jews, too. To add to its other virtues, the law
is disengenous.

P.S. a feature of the new law is that employers in
the private sector have a clear right to
consider whether they wish to keep employees
who wear religious identification, like
yamulkas. Well done.

2

Why do you believe the government is after Muslims?

3

There are plenty of Moslem immigrants who arent
being integrated into French society. Also there’s
a concern about Islamic fundamentalism.
Finally there are right wing anti-immigration
fascists like Le Pen, who wish to stop immigration.
Forcing Moslems to ‘blend’ in tends to defang
the anti-immigration right wing, who call
the measure an excuse for immigration.

This isn’t completely gratuitous, but the
violation of fundamental human rights
often isn’t. That’s why they’re rights.
They can’t be sacrificed for good causes,
except under the most extraordinary
circumstances. And the arguments
being given are scary. I especially like
the part where we tell Jews we’re
banning yamulkas so as to protect
them from anti-semitism.

4

Maybe a better idea would be to go back to the old days of “freshman beanies.” Remember those, Jim? Just require everyone to wear one. Or the Jewish kids could wear a beret over their yarmulkas, thereby being mistaken by the Parisians for American tourists rather than Jewish students. Oh, wait…they’d probably be treated just as badly. Never mind.

It warms my heart to know that we Americans aren’t the only ones who come up with dumb reactionary solutions to our problems.

:wink:

5

I suppose you’all don’t remember, but there
was a time when there were yamulkas with
a buckle in the back. Buckles in the back
were big in the 50s, and yamulkas weren’t
omitted.

6

I may be one of the few on this board who attended french public schools for my childhood.

This is not all as drastic as we like to play it up.
French public schools have long tried to “level the playing field” between students by minimizing the differences between them. For example, children had to wear smocks, to school. The reason was to cover their clothing so that the finer clothing of the upper class children would not always be in the faces of the poorer children, and they would at least appear to be more equal. The point is that we were all treated the same.

We learned to write with quill and ink well, not because bic pens were not available, they were. But the use of quill dip pens made us focus on writing skills. The French BIC company had a lawsuit at some point against the French government over the freedom to write with whatever was desired. I’m sure they must have won eventually, but I will bet the whole system changed so that all the children did the same thing. We were uniform, and there can be freedom in uniformity, although this may seem too conservative a view to some. Many school districts in the United States are considering school uniforms as a way of solving some social issues.

France is not the United States. Although we share the fruits of the French Enlightenment, we have a very different take on the place of religion in the state. The revolution of 1789 began a long process of tearing away the clutching hand of the Catholic Church from the heart of French government. After ups and downs, the church/state issue remains alive, but with religion still being usually a secondary sexual charasteristic of the french female.

Only the French state can legally unite people in matrimony at City Hall, but just before or after the civil ceremony, a religious ceremony is performed as well (but is not recognized by the state). In a sense, they recognize civil unions, and leave marriage to the churches. No matter what religion you are, this is the way you marry in France, love it or leave it.

The head scarf controversy is a tempest in a teapot. Over 60% in a recent poll agreed that it was proper to resrtict overt displays of religion in school. Large crosses, kippa and headscarves all fall in that category.
In france this is not seen as discrimination at all, but a visual equality much the same as the smocks of years past.

Of all the things to get exercized about, the headscarf controversy seems a bit over the top. If you move to France, then by God, you should expect not to change THEM. France is not happy being a “melting pot” and neither is Germany, and they have a right to expect that immigrants will work themselves into the national way of doing things and not the other way around. These are not entirely new laws but clarifications of traditions which the French have held for many generations.

Just to complicate things, lets be honest, there is some serious anti-semitism in France. There always has been, just as there always has been in other European countries, especially Germany. The holocaust was just the climax of a long off-and-on pogrom lasting from the fall of the Roman empire. Many Frenchmen were more than happy to work with the Nazis to get rid of the Jews of Europe. With a vast influx of Muslims, many French people, who have no where else to go, and don’t want to be a melting pot, intensely resent the obvious presence of Islam. This is an unpleasant fact, yet it exists, and their hearts will not be changed by appeals to human rights. What are we going to do now…invade France because they are anti-semetic? I’m sure there are worse people in the world than the French that need chastising by God’s assistants to the chosen people.

Anti-semitism in the United States was fierce just a generation ago and extreem philosemitism is a recent American trait. We don’t even recognize that Arabs are all Semitic people too.

Immigration to the French implies means cultural integration and assimilation. We have many of these attitutes here in America, but they are social pressures. When the Southwest, Florida and California begin speaking Spanish as the official state languages, because that is what their voters wanted, then you may see some federal language laws.

My son can’t wear a T shirt to school made by the Billabong company because it has the word “bong” in it. The French are not alone.

7

My dad is a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church. He also has a (secular) job working with the mentally disabled in a sheltered workshop environment. It’s not a government agency, but it does receive a lot of funding from the state. While he does not wear his clerical clothes at this job, he does wear a largish cross, and many of the clients who know he’s a priest call him “Father” (of their own free will, he doesn’t ask anybody to). Also, he has for decades signed his name with a “+” after it, a symbolic thing. Not long after he started working at this place, he was told that he had to stop wearing the cross, not let anyone call him “Father” and not sign his name with a “+”. They were very serious about it and he was threatened with termination if he did not obey. He then contacted the Rutherford Institute, which deals with discrimination against Christians, who threatened legal action against the agency if they would not allow him to exercise his rights. So he won that battle, but he still has to mind his P’s and Q’s there with the management, and not get caught in being involved with anything remotely religious while at work.

This despite the fact that not only is he good at his job, but all the clients and most of the other staff love him, he has become a spiritual counselor to many of them, has married staff members, buried clients, etc. etc. But heaven forbid he do anything RELIGIOUS at work!!

Another aspect I see in this case in France, besides the religious, is the attitude of “we must shield our children against anything that is remotely bad at all costs”. This is the attitude of not failing children in school “because they’ll feel bad” :confused: . Not giving out awards to kids with special achievements, because the other kids “might feel bad”. Playing sports where no team ever wins or loses, because the losers “will feel bad” :boggle: . While kids do need to learn a healthy self - esteem for themselves, phony accolades and the like is NOT the way to do it. I feel this attitude truly does more harm than good. I guess it makes me feel bad :slight_smile:

Beth

8

‘I believe people have a fundamental human right
to the free exercise of religion, and that includes
the right to operate in the public sector wearing
religious identification. Lines must be drawn somewhere,
obviously. A compelling state interest that simply
cannot be accomplished without interfering with
the right
is required to trump it. The Moslem lady
who insisted that she had a right to wear a veil
in her driver’s license photo was appropriately
defeated in court. But it’s obvious that orthodox
Jewish kids wearing a tiny skullcap doesn’t interfere
with any compelling state interest–and, very obviously,
there are far more effective and much less counterproductive
ways to protect Jewish kids from insults than
violating their human rights.’

Hi, Celtoid, I think your post is very interesting.
But i do think that you will have to reject what I
said above, and I wonder if you are willing to.
Do you think there is a fundamental human
right to the free exercise of religion,
which covers orthodox Jewish children
wearing a yamulka to public school?If so the French are violating it.

When I was a boy public schools required
uniforms, white shirts and red ties. Also we wore
yamulkas, some of us. The state survived.

Why is the fact that most french don’t see this
as discrimination or an important issue supposed
to be reassuring? That they don’t see the big difference
between wearing a yamulka and levis?
We don’t allow the latter, what’s the big
deal about the former.

Nobody is asking the French to
change, and the Jewish students wearing the
yamulkas typically aren’t
immigrants. Rather, on the face of things,
the french government is demanding that
the people change, and violating what I
take to be fundamental human rights.
Forgive me if I see this as not too distant
from blaming the victim. What’s the matter
with these people, wanting the state
to change?

Of course when you move somewhere you
need to adapt in various ways,
but it’s a big stretch to make out that
forsaking wearing a yamulka in one’s
public life, which is a religious duty, is just another
one of those changes, like learning English.


That your child can’t wear this or that t-shirt
is odd or silly, and might violate her free
speech rights–or maybe not. But the yamulka
isn’t much like ‘billabong,’ really. And that’s why
the right to wear it is protected by the
constitution, at least as the courts interpret it.
I think we got this one right, not just for us,
but for everybody. Best

P.S. Maybe it will help if I add that thousands
of people have died because they wouldn’t
take off the yamulka.

9

It seems our problem solving is operating at a real deficit Jim. Down South, a fourth grader (I believe) was suspended and almost arrested for kissing a girl on the cheek, all in the name of some misguided get tough zero tolerance policy with respect to sexual harrassment. Hard to understand how these people didn’t feel so stupid whilst implementing this beauty that they didn’t stop themselves. These are frustrating times wherein many seem content to take the easiest quickest blanket approach; one big beaurocracy with no discretion, common sense or humanity required. Let’s all take a deep breath, concentrate and continue to do what in our hearts we know to be right in the face of any evil or disinterest.

Best,

PhilO

10

OK. Maybe I need to get more multicultural. Best

11

Jim, to answer some of your questions.

Do I think that small jewish boys should be prevented from wearing yarmulkas to school? Personally? emphatically, no. That’s because I live in a country with the Bill of Rights and a different concept of individual as opposed to corporate societal rights.


On a personal note, I have my own shameful intollerant attitudes. I don’t much like religions in general, and see that, although a part of the human condition, they are guilty of the grossest injustices throughout the history of mankind.

I find many religious customs to be barbaric. I would have a strong inclination to outlaw circumcision as a tribal, unnecessary rite of mutilation and an act against nature, in spite of the fact that it is called for by Islam and Judaism. It symbolically replaces human sacrifice, the kind of human sacrifice that Abraham was in the process of unquestioningly making when stopped by his God, and a clear religious activity among Semitic tribes such as the Carthaginians. Cutting off the foreskin, a custom learned by Semites from the Egyptians, became a symbol of this bond with God. Mohammed, being a Jew-wanna-be (until they ridiculed him for his ignorance), picked up the custom from them.

I see the death of Jesus as a human sacrifice, consecrated every day with the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood. According to the catechism of the Catholic Church, this miracle of transsubstantiation still takes place wherein the bread actually becomes flesh and the wine actually becomes blood. Really. But today you don’t get to drink the blood because it is considered that the flesh alone contains all the substance of Jesus. (How conveniant.) I see this religion as human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism, and note that it has been infinitely more intollerant to others than Judaism or Islam could have ever been until the modern day. Intollerance is now the hallmark of Islam; how ironic.

Female genital mutilation I have no respect for and would outright ban it no matter what squirrelly religious rationalization people came up with. I am intollerant to the subjugation of women and any signs of this subjugation, such as the headscarves. Headscarves were called for by Saint Paul who wrote that they needed to be quiet and obediant to men and keep their heads covered. In France, women are supposed to be equal. Period.

People clearly don’t have a right to do anything at all just because their religion calls for it. But in my book, yarmulkas on little boys are not a big issue. On a common sense level it does not even rise up to the level of attention. Scarves on females fall into the same category. But mutilate their bodies, and you deserve to go to jail.

We, as Americans sometimes express the most baffling hypocricies. I don’t see us crawling all over Saudi Arabia…a place that will allow no other religious display other than Islam…period. No churches, no synagogues…nothing but mosques. Forget public schools. Why is our state department not giving them a hard time, as well as the dozens of other nations far more restrictive than France. We seem to accept that they have a right to do all this, including beheadings on Friday mornings in the public squares. There really is a very long list of countries which are far more restrictive than France. And we have, of course our own long list of sillyness when it comes to children and schools.

We should relax. The French are deeply a part of the center of Western Civilization; they are not an evil people; they have a right to exist and define who they will be. They have also let us know that, whatever we may think, they are going to turf and line their own playing field in the way that they choose.

12

This is not the case at all in France. Their educational standards have never become flabby and permissive. Baccalaureate exams are still very difficult. Universities still teach real subjects. Kids still play hard and play to win. They still maintain a meritocracy of education where ability means more than wealth, and the public school system goes all the way through university. Actually, when it comes to education, the French are as conservative as we are off the liberal deep end.

13

WARNING!

I am in the middle of an unwanted divorce proceedings now, and am prone to making intollerant, stupid and emotional comments (such as my posts in this thread). I’ve never been divorced before, widdowed with young children, yes, but never divorced. I think that people can work things out if the issues are pretty insignificant overall. In our case the issue is over the discipline of those prior children. Nothing else. Really.

I have been forced to buy another home and will soon move myself and my two older sons into it . My youngest son will remain a captive of his hyper-controlling mother in our current home. Music has become my saving grace, and my practice sessions as much a necessity as song is to a canary in a cage. And then there is the selfish but guilty feeling of impending liberation from a long controlled confinement and the expectation of filling my new home with music and happiness rather than today’s severe silence and dour expression.

14

Been divorced three times. The fourth marriage
works fine. Good luck with it!

15

A Sacrifice both human and divine. The partaking of Christ was a matter for which Christians were maligned from the beginning, as we read in the Gospel.

16

Thanks for your support Jim. I may stay single from now on. :astonished:


I am going to sit out this thread and just enjoy other people for a bit. :slight_smile:

17

It took me a year to get over it, the last one
really hurt. Then, some time later,
this beautiful young woman, 24 years my junior,
took my intro class. Kept coming to my office
and talking with me. Managed to avoid hanky pankyuntil after the course was over. We’ve been married
for 13 years. You die one day, you’re born the
next. Never give up, I say. Best

18

Also, it is emphatically NOT true that you “don’t get to drink the blood.” The Church allows communion under both species as a local option, and has since Vatican II. The part of the catechism Celtoid is misunderstanding expresses that it is not ESSENTIAL to receive both the bread and the wine…either is fully sufficient unto itself. If, for example, a person is unable to swallow solids, just receiving the consecrated wine is sufficient. If a church or diocese does not offer the wine for some reason (as with the Diocese of Monterey, which has opted not to offer wine during the flu season out of concerns of spreading infection via the common chalice), the bread suffices.

Redwolf

19

Just a couple of quick comments. From the tenor of this thread, this is being reported in the States as primarily targeting Jews and Muslims. As I understand it, it targets any conspicuous religious symbols including crosses.

Religious sensibilities can be insuperable problems in an education system. I teach philosophy at university. Taking an active part in tutorial discussion is an essential part of taking a philosophy subject. Some Muslim women regard it as wrong to speak to unrelated men. They cannot take an active part in tutorials and therefore cannot take our subjects. Sorry, but I can’t see any sensitive and workable way around this ruling.

A similar problem emerges in moral philosophy classes where a small minority of Christian students insist on treating the bible as though it were a set text in the subject, even though there are any number of Christian philosophers on whose work they are free to draw and some always amongst the set readings. Fortunately, these students usually do enough of what we want to pass, but the whole exercise seems wasted as a learning experience. I have no desire to undermine anybody’s faith but the subject is not about witnessing and I don’t see why anyone should expect life to come with a guarantee that reason and faith never be in conflict.

20

Obviously their convictions prevent them from taking a class such as that, unless in a women’s university with female instructors, but this is a rather different matter than proscribing prescribed religious garb.

Ho hum. I guess they could be creative. Wear the cross under their shirt… Wear a toupee over the yamulka… It’s not the first time governments have targeted religious groups for being different, or if not targeting them, forbidding them to be different. “We’re not asking you to quit praying in the name of Christ or to renounce your Baptism… just bow to the statue of Cæsar, too, like every other Roman. Make a little sacrifice.”