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and violating their rights. The First Amendment to the Constitution protects freedom of religion by banning Congress from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion and from prohibiting people from freely exercising their religion. The Supreme Court has applied these limits to state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment (Bill of Rights Institute, 2010). Muslim women cover their body for religious purposes. Muslim women, like all people in the United States, have the right to practice their religion. They also have the right to be treated equally and the right not to be discriminated against or harassed because of their religion, their gender, or perceptions about their nationality or ethnicity. Not all Muslim women follow these rules of modest dressing (American Civil Liberties Union, 2012). Some adapt these rules to modern times (like wearing a headscarf). Some women argue that modesty is a state of mind and has nothing to do with clothing. Regardless what is written in the Quran and in hadiths is that M uslim women must cover up (Mir, S. 2008). Despite this, all pool facilities have rules and regulations that everyone must obey. One in which is that every patron (man, women, and child) must wear proper swim wear in order to enter the pool. Proper swim attire does not entail fully clothed. Regardless of the rules, if a person is denied entry into a facility because of their attire it is discrimination against his/her religion. An example of this incident is a Muslim family in Lyons, Illinois was denied entry into a water park because of their attire. The article states:
Alaraj was denied entry to the water park because she was wearing a long dress and headscarf instead of a swimsuit, according to a complaint filed with the Illinois Department of Human Rights. When she agreed to leave, Yaqub and his sons also were prevented from entering because park officials told them their swimsuits were not made of the proper material.
In the complaint, Yaqub said that he was wearing basketball shorts and that his sons were wearing children's swimsuits. The agency investigated and in a report released Friday concluded the family was wrongly denied "full and equal enjoyment" of the facility, and their denial of entry was "pretext for unlawful discrimination." "This incident is a blatant example of anti-Muslim discrimination," Christina Abraham, civil rights director for the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement. "Everyone is entitled to the equal enjoyment of public places." Smith, G. (2010).