Today's "Moscow Times" offers up an interesting story addressing the conflict of religion and civil society. Top Court Gives OK to Scarves
The argument of the state is eminently logical, proposing simply that the purpose of an identification card is to identify an individual. Human beings identify other human beings primarily on the basis of facial features - it is in fact how we are hard-wired to identify - which is precisely why identification cards carry a facial photo most prominently. Other characteristics may be listed, but the key point of the thing is the face. Thus, identification cards in which an individual's face is partially or entirely covered negate the purpose of the identity card and are the equivalent of dodging the law- as when vehicle license plates are covered in such a way as to prevent their being read. As far as the state is concerned, once the ability to identify the item in question is undermined by an action on the part of an individual, that individual is acting against the law.
Countering that is the religion issue. If a religion, allowed by the state to hold exceptional importance in the life of an individual, requires a certain action, the state should really only block that action in extreme circumstance where there is obvious social damage. Religion is probably given more leeway in civil society than it deserves for two reasons : one, because of the historical remnants of power it held over the people, often acting as the state and two, because of the sympathetic benefits the state tends to accrue from active religions. In America, for example, the vast majority of the population is of a Christian persuasion. Since Christian morals as broadly-defined match rather well with American law, the church and its ideals are not attacked. It isn't so much a show of religious tolerance as a pragmatic decision to rule with the majority.
The issue with the scarves in Russia, as the article notes in its last line, is a problem of the minority. Regardless of actual figures, the governments in question are defined by the west as secular. With important religious populations, these governments are forced to take a particularly exacting attitude towards implementation of laws. Russia's problem began with the annexation of religiously defined territories far-distant from Russia's base of operation.
Two questions are worth asking - whether secular simply means Christian and whether it is possible to run a government on the basis of a religious system to which its people do not necessarily subscribe. An important point of study there would be the fall of religion in the west. There may be an interesting link between civil strife, public involvement in the government and governing decisions and the public's impression of government's role in their lives.