French Olympians can't wear hijabs. Human rights group says its discrimination

[JT45242]

1. Tough call...no one representing the French government is allowed to promote any religion

Their version of the no establishment clause is applied to all religions equally. All paid government workers... And like it or not, Olympic athletes are paid by the government.

A lot of understandable French fear after Cardinal Richelieu and other efforts by religious folks to impact the government.

I would rather see a position like this than the Christian nationalism of the US.

The athletes can decide which is more important to them -- competing for France as employees of the French government or their religion and wearing a headscarf.

Sandy Koufax sat out elimination playoff games for religious holidays. Other Jewish athletes chose to compete.

There are some who criticized Hakeem Alojawan for his poor play in late Sunday afternoon games during Ramadan. He could have broken the fast, but he chose not to. Did it really make a difference, who knows.

I generally don't trust the IOC as far as anything is concerned as so many of them are on the take and only apply rules sometimes (looking at Russian and Chinese doping programs).