Controversy over the hijab in Italy

I heard this on NPR today. The story is about, as my headline suggests, controversy over the wearing of the Islamic headscarf worn by some female practioners of the faith.

I feel very conflicted over this. As an American, born and raised, even though I'm embarrassed by that fact that I am an American from time to time by the bad behavior of my president or for other reasons that I don't need to get into right now, the belief that people have the right to express themselves however they choose is blood-deep in me. From an extremely early age, I was taught that if you wish to dye your hair purple, or wear orange and green together, that is your right. Freedom of expression is one of our most dearly held ideas. (And next in line is the right to poke fun at badly dressed celebrities such as on Go Fug Yourself. I'm kidding. Kidding!)

Freedom of speech means that you must work as hard or harder to protect the speech that you dislike as the speech you like. So the right of one of my Islamic neighbors to wear the headscarf is something I must work to protect even if I disagree with it.

But I'm not sure I do disagree. All I really know about Islam has been taught to me by popular culture and media, and you'll forgive me for being very skeptical that the media in America is the most reliable of teachers when it comes to non-christian religions. So I think that I know that some forms of Islam repress women, and it would seem that the repression is at least partially expressed by the hijab.

No one, however, is suggesting that female Orthodox Jews stop covering their hair, or that any other culture be forced to "intergrate" into Italian society.

I need to read the Koran so that I can have a better understanding of the basic tennets of Islam. More people practice that faith than any other in the world...