imported_tajmahal
Lifer
Congresswoman McSally, just more reasons to support her.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...55c38388962_story.html?utm_term=.00b3a6312539
................."Exactly what that would mean for McSally became clear immediately. In a briefing right after she arrived, officers matter-of-factly laid down the rules for travel off base, even on official business: All female personnel would wear the customary head-to-toe gown, the abaya and its matching head scarf, similar to the Afghan burqa. They could not drive. They would ride in the back seat. They would be escorted by males at all times.
Officials said they had constructed the policy to keep from offending conservative Saudi leaders and to protect U.S. troops from terrorist attacks. But to McSally, the directive, with its different instructions for men and women, “abandons our American values that we all raised our right hand to die for.” "
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Last month, she sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, contending that the abaya policy is unconstitutional because it discriminates against women and violates their religious freedom by forcing them to adopt the garb of another faith. The suit seeks no monetary damages.
Her cause has support from an unlikely coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal feminists.
“What makes this particularly bizarre,” says Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), one of five Republican senators who has pushed the Defense Department to junk the policy, “is that we are waging a war in Afghanistan to remove those abayas, and the very soldiers who are conducting that war have to cover up.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...55c38388962_story.html?utm_term=.00b3a6312539
................."Exactly what that would mean for McSally became clear immediately. In a briefing right after she arrived, officers matter-of-factly laid down the rules for travel off base, even on official business: All female personnel would wear the customary head-to-toe gown, the abaya and its matching head scarf, similar to the Afghan burqa. They could not drive. They would ride in the back seat. They would be escorted by males at all times.
Officials said they had constructed the policy to keep from offending conservative Saudi leaders and to protect U.S. troops from terrorist attacks. But to McSally, the directive, with its different instructions for men and women, “abandons our American values that we all raised our right hand to die for.” "
.............
"
Last month, she sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, contending that the abaya policy is unconstitutional because it discriminates against women and violates their religious freedom by forcing them to adopt the garb of another faith. The suit seeks no monetary damages.
Her cause has support from an unlikely coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal feminists.
“What makes this particularly bizarre,” says Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), one of five Republican senators who has pushed the Defense Department to junk the policy, “is that we are waging a war in Afghanistan to remove those abayas, and the very soldiers who are conducting that war have to cover up.”
