You made there a point Wolf, both are religious symbols.

Now lets put things in context (just for you to understand a bit more my opinion). The USA has a religious diversity I think not many countries have. That way, you americans have decided that the best way to tolerate one another and to live peacefully and comfortably is to don't have any religious symbols in your schools (for example).

In Spain the religion spectrum is narrower. Most of the people are catholic (with more or less faith), or they don't believe in God (agnostics, deists). Of course there are jews, moslems, hinduists, anglicans, protestants, mormons, etc, but they are a minority, and those who are spanish (have grown here at least), accept the symbols that the great majority has stated as apropiate, taking them as not offensive to their own religions.

The problem here is not as religious as it may be seen, it is social. Spaniards dress in a casual way, and headscarfs are really seen not as religious sheet, but as an imposition to the women. That is not the point, the point is that a girl in a school where everybody except her is dressing in a certain way can't integrate herself in the community normally. What would happen in the gym classes? The headscarf will limit what she can do. Thus, the father wants a school to break their own rules saying it is a religious stuff.

In Melilla 30-40% of the citizens are moslem, of course the standards there are not the same as in the Peninsula, and nobody would interfere in what they have decided it is "normal".

It is as if my mother goes to Saudi Arabia and wants to wear jeans in the streets... you have to accept the rules of the other countries, and not trying to impose your standards.

Probably in the future the heirs of the inmigrants will be an important minority, and thus we will have to change our standards. But now things are as they are. What is valid for the common spaniards is also valid for the inmigrants (Fernando said :p)

I really respect the freedom of religion, if someone has taken wrong conclusions from my words

Fernando