Jewish men who have served in the House, and this rule was never changed
for them. But the principle must always be maintained: wherever Islamic
law and custom and American law and custom conflict, American law and
custom must give way.
“US House Reverses 181-Year-Old-Rule To Appease Newly Elected Muslim,” by Cillian Zeal, Western Journal, November 17, 2018:
For 181 years, you haven’t been able to wear head
coverings on the floor of the House of Representatives. Now, however,
after the election of the first hijab-wearing Muslim representative,
that’s about to be changed.According to the New York Post,
the election of Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar will put an end to a rule that
was originally meant to differentiate Congress from British Parliament.Parlimentarians had a tradition of wearing hats on the floor of
Westminster. Given that we took up coffee as our national beverage (and
even threw that dastardly tea over the sides of some ships in Boston
Harbor) to let the British know how we felt about their institutions,
banning hats only seemed to come naturally.However, in the age of Ilhan Omar, that’s changing.
“There are those kinds of policies that oftentimes get created
because people who have blind spots are in positions of influence and
positions of power,” Omar said Thursday.“I think it will be really exciting to see the stuff that we notice within the rules that don’t work for a modern-day America.”…
There have been numerous changes to dress code in Congress over the
years; women were forbidden to wear pants on the floor until 1993, and bare arms were first allowed under Paul Ryan’s speakership.So, the times they do a-change when it comes to congressional styles.
However, the aforementioned rules were based around gender biases and
the norms of the era; there wasn’t any real or symbolic reasoning behind
them. In this case, it isn’t quite that simple.