Secularism & Religious Identity

Here’s a fascinating story about freedom of religion and secularism. Does religious freedom mean that you should be free from religion in public, meaning that you do not show your religion by dress or religious symbol?

That’s the law in France, notes Daniel Estrin in a story for PRI’s The World. “The French Republic rests on the notion of secularism, that your ‘community’ is France itself.” Jews cannot wear yarmulkes and Muslim women cannot wear headscarves.

Estrin suggests that French secularism negates religious identity for the sake of French identity while in America we take for granted that “our ethnic or religious identities don’t negate our identities as Americans.”

This might be an interesting story for students to debate.