OVO

A Southern California county will allow jailed Muslim women to wear headscarves after settling a lawsuit with a woman who claims that deputies violated her religious freedom by making her remove her hijab. The settlement agreement signed by the county last week and released Monday specifies that Muslim women must be provided a private area to remove their headscarves after arrest and must be provided with county-issued headscarves to cover themselves when they are in the presence of men. [...] Medina, 30, was arrested in December 2005 in Pomona for having an invalid train pass. She spent 12 hours in jail but was never prosecuted.

[Article continues at link. I predict that a Muslim group will demand to authorize the county-issued headscarves mentioned above to make sure that they are appealing to their particular invisible monster that lives in the sky, in the same way that Jewish groups authorize slaughterhouses to make sure that they are appealing to their particular invisible monster that lives in the sky. The difference is that eating meat from a slaughterhouse is optional while (for better and for worse) being arrested is not optional. Thus for the State to issue headscarves is the establishment of religion and a Constitutionally questionable act. On a site note, the arrest itself and processing afterwards is of some concern to me. Spending 12 hours in jail for riding on an invalid train pass seems excessive, as does a trial requiring three years to play out. - Trevor Blake]