Archive — red state blue state

“It seems to me that those three models are really competing for ascendancy all over the world. In its extreme form, you have the sort of theocratic model like the Iranians where all women have to wear Muslim head coverings. Then you have the French model which is sort of the extreme on the other side that says you cannot wear Muslim head coverings and go to public school. It is sort of the supreme value of the French state (they have actually said this) is secularism.

Whereas, in America in Muskogee, Oklahoma, (in about as deep in red state country as you can get) they have concluded that Muslim girls may or may not wear their head scarves to school depending on the Muslim girls and their parents’ preference. That is pluralism…”