With a young Canadian soccer player pulled from a game for wearing a hijab, and, during the election, having the Keeper of the Election Rule-Book deciding that women wearing a hijab must remove their veil to be identified before voting, the question of religious clothing and paraphernalia is still stuck in our collective craw.

Or is it the fact that the gear is Muslim that bothers us so?

What also bothers us is the public nature of such religious self-definition. We tend to believe that religious views are personal, not in the sense that we each have a personal right to hold religious views -- the freedom of our beliefs -- but that personal means keeping it where we keep other personal things -- at home, in the church, or temple, in our personal space, but not in the streets.

Don't we feel uncomfortable with a crazy-eyed guy wearing a sandwich board proclaiming the apocalypse is near, a religious view, not an astronomical or scientific statement?

Likewise we feel uncomfortable with someone wearing a religious uniform, the hijab or the nun's habit (which isn't worn in public for this very reason).

I suspect even the most red-necked of us would agree that Muslims, Hindus. Buddhists, or Jains have the right to practice whatever religious rites interest them -- as long as they do so at home, in their personal space.

What's curious is how invisible are our majority violations of this code of the personal.

How many of us even notice, let alone feel uncomfortable with someone wearing a cross on a gold chain or as ear rings? With a priest or minister's white collar? With a senior holding a rosary? With a cross dangling from a rear-view mirror? With a religious symbol on a van's rear, around the license plate? With a tattoo of a cross, or wearing a yarmulka?

Do we notice that Christian churches dominate the skyline of most of our towns? Do we notice the large number of religious schools, so nicely outfitted and landscaped? Do we notice the hundreds of churches, from semi-cathedrals or modernist buildings, to storefronts or renovated commercial buildings? Billboards advertising that "Jesus saves"? These are all statements in the public domain.

Take our most public of activities, talking. We may be struck by the ubiquitous "God bless you" (or "God bless America") in the US, but do we notice the religious content in our own conversations?

We hear "God bless" even from our most public of figures, our new prime minister. What is he telling us when he uses religious expressions in such a public way? Is he denying that religion is a personal thing?

And if he is, why are we upset when Muslims do this?

How many of us use religious language, wishes, blessings, and curse-words: "God knows", "thank heavens", etc.?

Some provinces give public money to religious schools. Aren't we offended to learn that Pakistan supports religious schools, the madrasses, out of which came the Taliban fanatics? By exempting churches from property taxes, we are giving them a public advantage.

If we believe religion is a personal matter, and that freedom of belief is circumscribed by its personal nature, shouldn't we practice what we, er, preach?

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Copyright © 2007 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/04.07