Religious freedom as protection of the private sphere

A heated discussion is currently raging in Flanders over the ban on headscarves in schools. The religious scholar Rik Torfs writes in the daily De Standaard that the ongoing debate shows that religious freedom must be reinterpreted: "I tend more to favour the American notion that sees both religious freedom and the freedom of opinion in very broad terms, rather than the European concept in which the rights of others and the defence of society are more quickly experienced as limits. ... In public life, for example in schools, religious symbols like headscarves are no longer permitted. In return religious groups acquire the right not to have their religious feelings offended. In this way religious freedom is less based on the freedom of opinion than previously, and far more on the protection of the private sphere. Religious freedom is turning into the right to be left in peace. But that is tantamount to catastrophe. A society without a wide-ranging climate of discussion is stone-dead. But that's how things are, limiting one human right can only lead to limiting another."

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