Lawmakers: Servicewomen shouldn't have to wear Muslim garb

By The Associated Press

05.15.02

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WASHINGTON — U.S. servicewomen in Saudi Arabia should never be required or encouraged to wear Muslim-style head-to-toe robes, the House said yesterday, unanimously pushing the Pentagon to eliminate the abaya from servicewomen's wardrobes.

"I am puzzled by the fact that our female military personnel are treated like second-class citizens while stationed on soil they're defending from Iraqi aggression," Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., said during House debate.

By voice vote, the House approved a bill that would prohibit the Pentagon from requiring or even informally urging servicewomen to wear abayas, the unadorned, head-to-toe garment Saudi women wear, and would bar the department from buying the garments for regular issuance to servicewomen.

The Senate has not taken up the issue.

The House measure was introduced by Hostettler and cosponsored by Reps. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and James Langevin, D-R.I.

"Women make first-class soldiers and should not be treated like second-class citizens," Langevin said.

The Defense Department policy on abayas "is completely unacceptable to this House and to the American people," said Wilson, a seven-year Air Force veteran.

"The sad thing is that this bill is needed at all," said Wilson. "This policy should never have been put in place." When senior commanders learned about it, she said, "It should have been immediately repealed as transparently unconstitutional."

The State Department does not require female embassy employees to wear abayas in Saudi Arabia. Lynne Cheney wore a business suit, not an abaya, when she accompanied Vice President Dick Cheney on a recent visit there, said Hostettler.

Starting with the 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon required servicewomen in Saudi Arabia to wear abayas whenever they left their bases. It pulled back a bit in January with a rule that "strongly encouraged" wearing the face-covering robe.

A month earlier, Lt. Col. Martha McSally, a Warwick, R.I., native and the Air Force's highest-ranking female fighter pilot, had filed suit over the old policy, but Central Command spokesman Col. Rick Thomas maintained the suit did not prompt the change.

The January change didn't go far enough, Hostettler said.

"Strongly encouraging our female military personnel to wear the abaya sure sounds like an order to me," he said. "Christians like Lt. Col. Martha McSally should not be forced to wear a Muslim outfit, especially when off-duty and on their own time."

McSally's lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, calls the original policy unconstitutional and says it improperly forces American women to conform to the Saudis' religious and social customs. It also challenges policies requiring servicewomen to be accompanied by a man whenever they leave their base and to ride in the back seat of a car. Thomas said those policies remain in effect.

Saudi women are forbidden to drive, and most do not work in public. Those who do are barred from some professions that might bring them in contact with men not their husbands, although other such jobs remain open.

The Pentagon filed a motion to dismiss McSally's suit after the January change, and a federal judge is considering that now, said John Whitehead, a lawyer with the Rutherford Institute, a religious freedom group representing McSally.

Central Command officials had said wearing an abaya made servicewomen less likely to face harassment or attack.

Government-paid religious police called the muttawa roam the streets to enforce dress and other restrictions. While they have reduced their profile and abandoned many of their harsh methods of previous years, they remain a force to contend with by women not clad according to muttawa specifications.

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Military eases policy requiring women to wear Muslim garb
But Air Force fighter pilot plans to continue lawsuit challenging rule that forced servicewomen in Saudi Arabia to wear head-to-toe robes when off base.  01.23.02