[hatedbythemail]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Several posts have already been made - I have made more than one of them - that explain that to you. You have chosen to ignore them.

Let me set out the key points as I see them, again:

1. Equating the cross and the headscarf makes for a poor analogy. The cross is a common symbol of the religion, the headscarf is a deliberate statement of a personal, moral position. A better equivalent would be the crescent. For example, here is the crest of the Nottingham Islamia School, about which I recall absolutely no controversy whatsoever:



2. The school crest identifies, to some greater or lesser extent, the moral atmosphere, direction and aspirations of the school. It does not make a statement about the personal morality of the wearer. An item of religious attire, on the other hand, most certainly does suggest that the wearer subscribes to a particular ideology or doctrine. Although mainstream Islam generally agrees that all muslim women should cover up to some extent or other, muslim women themselves only do so if they personally agree and wish to identify with the teaching on modesty. On the other hand there is no teaching in Christianity that says you must wear certain symbols in order to properly show accord with any doctrine or expression of morality. Plenty of people do use Christian symbols, such as the cross or fish, as statements of belief, but this is far from universal and to try to claim it's in the same category as the headscarf is simply absurd.

3. If you see a nun walking down the high street in her traditional headscarf, I predict you would *assume* she was a nun under holy orders. If you see a woman in identifiably Islamic dress with her head covered, I predict you would *assume* she was a muslim who wished to honour her religion's teaching on female modesty.

On the other hand, the thrust of the row over Fiona Bruce's crucifix necklace the other week was that nobody outside of loony-liberal BBC management would assume she was actually making a statement of religion by wearing it during the 10 o'clock news. The cross, due to its status as an item of jewellery and the fact that nobody executes by crucifixion any more (nor knows what crucifixion is, in many cases) has lost a lot of its impact as a religious symbol. So, even when it is worn with specific religious intent, its meaning is likely to be lost on a significant proportion of people.

thanks for sucgh a detailed post. i still struggle with this though. accepting your argument re the cross and the headscarf (and its reiteration by macca) as not being strictly analgous i still dont understand why the opposition as such to the headscarf. yes it is not the crescent (or cross) but it is (or isn't depending on where you stand) an article of faith; it is a way of demonstrating allegiance with and adherence to islam (or not ;-) ) in that way the two symbolic devices - the logo with the cross and the headscarf - are performing very similar functions. im not sure also that the headscarf is simply a personal moral position, as strands of islam rather than just individuals seem to interpret the need for the covering of the head/face. besides having faith is a personal moral position in itself i suppose. and a school badge may not in itself provide an indication of personal morality, but it does promote a school's theological position which may steretypically be asumed to be shared by the pupil and/or his parents (though in reality some peoole have little or no choice which school their kid atends). im sure that if a pupil wore a uniform bearing the crescent most here would asume the child was muslim.

the argument over fiona bruce's cross was tosh though. agree there :-) but one point is that it that the cross, through its use in jewellery etc, may have lost some of its potency as a religious icon in certain circumstances, but it could be argued, he said very tentatively, that the headscarf suffers from not being as widespread; it is seen outside the mainstream societal norm even though it may be the norm within muslim communities. as time goes by i venture the headscarf will become accepted - that is if uk media plc tires of its obession with criticising islam ;-)