How would you feel if your Nordstrom saleswoman wore a burqa?
Are you familiar with the culture at Abercrombie & Fitch? Their stores feature tight spotlighting and dark colors reminiscent of Count Dracula's torture den. They also have giant wall-sized photos of topless guys with prominent, screaming red areolas, who always seem to have trouble keeping their trousers on, and women in various poses suggesting the desperate need to be soothed. Well, this chain of stores selling sexy clothing has been sued by a Muslim who claims she was discriminated against because they wouldn't let her wear a head scarf at work.
What's wrong with wearing a scarf on your head? Well, although the Times called it a head scarf, it actually was a hijab, the severe black cloth that covers the entire head except the face.
Samantha Elauf, who sued A&F, said, “When I applied for a position with Abercrombie Kids, I was a teenager who loved fashion[.]”
This teenager who loves fashion wears a black cloth that covers most of her head.
At the trial, Ms. Elauf said she loved movies, shopping, sushi and the mall. “It’s like my second home,” she said. She was saving, she said, to open her own boutique. It would sell “really fashion-forward stuff, cute stuff,” Ms. Elauf said.
How could she sell items she could never wear? Or does "fashion forward" mean polka-dot burqas?
You may be asking yourself, what possible reason could a store like A&F, which sells hip, sexy clothes to young people, have to prevent a modest Muslim sales clerk from dressing like a very normal day in Tehran? A&F claims that it has nothing to do with religion, that it would hire Muslims gladly, but that its sales employees need to conform to a certain dress code to sell its products.
It seems the Supreme Court is unlikely to agree. In oral arguments, the justices seem to think that A&F should have tried to "accommodate" Ms. Elauf. Even though A&F is in the business of selling sexy clothes to young kids, it is going to be forced to hire saleswomen who look like they're straight from the virgin wing of Islamic Jihad.
But this case opens the door to even more provocations. If A&F can be forced to hire Muslims who wear the hijab, what about Muslims who wear a burqa, even one that covers the eyes? Can stores be forced to hire them as salespeople? Can restaurants be forced to hire them as waitresses? Do you think people will feel comfortable being served by women who are wearing black sheets from head to toe?
I thought when immigrants came to America, they had to adapt to our culture, not the other way around. If they want to dress like Hezb'allah runway models, they can do that at home. But it seems that political correctness is going to force our culture to "accommodate" the strictest forms of sharia law.
Exit question: Who do you think would look better in a burqa: Ruth Bader Ginsberg or Elena Kagan?
Pedro Gonzales is the editor of Newsmachete.com, the conservative news site.