President Obama hosted an Iftar dinner at the White House on September 1. Iftar refers to the meal each evening during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan when the daily fast is broken.

As part of his welcoming comments, Obama talked about the value of religious freedom. He said that the freedom to practice religion is enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and that one woman in attendance at the Iftar fought for the legal right to wear a hijab at school.

“Nashala Hearn, who joins us from Muskogee, Oklahoma, took a stand for that right at an early age. When her school district told her that she couldn’t wear the hijab, she protested that it was a part of her religion,” Obama said. “The Department of Justice stood behind her, and she won her right to practice her faith. She even traveled to Washington to testify before Congress. Her words spoke to a tolerance that is far greater than mistrust — when she first wore her headscarf to school, she said, ‘I received compliments from the other kids.’”

Have you ever stood up for religious freedom?

See other articles about religious garb.

Summer is the season of swimsuits, but a recent news story demonstrates that what people wear to the pool or beach might matter more than you think. According the Associated Press, a Muslim woman in France wearing a bathing suit covering most of her body was banned from using a local pool. The woman claims this was discriminatory, but French officials say it was simply for hygienic purposes.

We’ve talked about the issue of religious garb here in the U.S. , and the bathing suit story illustrates the conflict between the right to practice one’s religion and certain laws or regulations.

How do you think societies can best deal with situations like this?

Check out this cool vid about fashion designer Brooke Samad.

David Waters writes about an Oregon state law that requires all employers to allow employees to wear religious items, except for teachers in public schools who may not “wear any religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher.” Waters calls the issue the “classic religious liberty battle between the First Amendment’s Establishment clause, which tells government not to favor (or disfavor) one religion over another, and the Free Exercise clause, which tells government to leave the religious alone.”

When Americans believe that a law has violated their religious freedom, they turn to the courts. They might challenge a law for impermissibly establishing a faith, or for restricting their free exercise of religious practice. The courts must decide whether the laws have strayed from that fundamental principle of religious freedom outlined in the Constitution. Some cases go all the way to the Supreme Court.

This law governing the wearing of religious items provides an interesting look into the way American courts handle issues of religious freedom. In this case, everyone from NGOs representing Sikh and Muslim organizations, to the Oregon Department of Education has already commented on the matter.

Should the government have any say in what people wear? What if a garment offends others? Is the right to religious liberty greater than any individuals feeling about the matter? These are the kinds of questions that arise in the U.S. when matters of religion enter the public sphere. What are your thoughts?

For more information check out the eJournal USA: Freedom of Faith