In 2016 we see that religious diversity and tolerance has reached right up to the line where secular government has regulated outward displays of religious beliefs.
Religious freedom and freedom for the general populace seem to clash on a daily basis.
Everything has changed dramatically from the days of a few decades ago when Arabs – few thought of them as Muslims at that time – wore relatively strange head dress, men and women. And nobody cared.
Declaring that people can worship and dress as they please does not solve the sticky situations that lie ahead. When female crew members working for Western airlines are told they must wear headscarves while within the boundaries of certain Muslim nations, that seems ridiculous. But when European nations ban Muslim women from wearing headscarves in public, that also seems far beyond the pale.
I would also suggest that bathroom issues that are all the rage these days, with the focus on transgender folks, have no connection at all to religious teachings.
Freelance columnist Dennis Lennox, a Republican activist, notes that the GOP’s claim that the one, true Christian stance that marriage is between a man and a woman has already been obliterated by fast-moving changes in social norms. With a number of Christian sects “blessing or otherwise solemnizing gay marriage,” the standard political stance of just a decade ago now ties conservatives into knots.
In a guest column for The Detroit News, Lennox contemplates where religious freedom and secular liberties collide:
For example, could a Muslim driver’s education instructor refuse
female pupils, citing Wahhabbist clerics in Saudi Arabia? Then there’s
the parish hall of a Christian church that is also rented out for
secular uses. Could the congregation be compelled to rent its space to
undesirable (tenants)?There have even been cases on college campuses of overtly religious
student groups being told they couldn’t deny membership to
non-adherents of their faith.In other countries — some touted so often by Democratic presidential
candidate Bernie Sanders and others on the left — Christian women have
been prohibited from wearing a cross around their neck and Muslim
women have been told they can’t wear headscarves in public.These are all real issues with no easy answers.
