I heard a BBC interviewer the other day going around interviewing Muslim women in the UK.  One of them made the point that MOST Islamic religious leaders agree that the head covering is not compulsory.  From the religion's pov, it is entirely voluntary and optional.  So when a school or politician or sporting group asks a muslim to not wear their veil, it shouldn't be seen as some insurmountable, religiously-intolerant challenge.

I agree there are a few individuals out there who are cracking out the violins and magnifying their personal stories to attempt to garner some public support with the bleeding heart sector of our communities, but the whole thing comes back to what sort of societies we want.  We have to balance how far we take religious freedom against issues of public safety, security and general harmony through effective communication.

Last I heard the UK, France, Netherlands and other European nations were already taking the lead in banning some of the more extremist Islamic gear such as Hijab in certain situations.  For example, the UK has decided to allow schools to ban students and teachers who wear it.  It isolates them, makes for ineffective learning, teaching and communication.  In short - it was just common sense.

For the sake of equality, so particular religious adherents don't feel targetted, I see no problem extending the ban (in certain locations) to other religious symbols - crosses, skullcaps etc.  Not that these provide the same issues of security, safety, poor communication mind you...

Ummm, really? I'm somehow missing all the demonstrations and public hearings and dissemination of political literature from the throngs of people who are of the opinion that religion and other views should never be forced upon young, developing minds.

In fact, I'm actually stunned that this thread has reached three pages, because normally when I listen for discussion of this topic in the public forum-at-large all I hear are crickets. I kinda wish I lived where you live, where there is such lively participatory debate on subjects like this. Until my experience changes, I'll stick to the suspicion that my original idea is 100% radioactive -- completely untouchable politically -- and that the Church Is Good For Kids view is on-track to remain a dominant and unchallenged paradigm for decades to come.

As far as the suggestions that I'm cherry-picking, again I say no. I'm not demanding the right to form tax-exempt institutions that have the teaching of my preferred spiritual beliefs as part of their mandate. I haven't really addressed my own spiritual beliefs at all in this thread, though -- the thread bloomed out of my re-consideration of some of my civic beliefs, which I assure you are largely separate.

Moral condemnation of non-heterosexuals is, in my view, anti-social. But there are people whose subjective sense of morality compels them toward this condemnation, and I can't philosophically justify punishing people who think that way, as long as they don't break any laws because of it. And I can't justify preventing parents from raising their children this way either.

Do you see that this is separate from questioning whether or not an arbitrarily subjective moral philosophy chosen by the last generation should be institutionally presented as the "normal" one to the next generation when they are still to young to comprehend the context?

As far as conflating religion with other views, that's probably its own thread, and then some.