"We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism."

What about the freedom not to? What about the freedom not to subscribe to all the Islamic traditions? Keep in mind that many women are forced to wear the hijab, or forbidden to go to school.

What about the freedom not to wear plaid skirts no more than one inch above the knee at Catholic girls' schools?

I think that making girls wear headscarves to show culturally-mandated modesty (and, arguably, subservience) is silly and in some circumstances objectionable. But in what circumstances do we limit parents and schools in dictating how minors dress? In many countries girls are free from government-imposed restrictions on their clothing. But in what countries are they free from parental- and school-imposed restrictions?

with this:

[I]t is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.

was touched upon by everyone else, but not explicitly. Obama misses the fundamental difference between having the freedom to do something, free from government control, and having the government (explicitly or via non-prosecution of violent gangs who enforce social rules) require one to do something.

The bothersome thing about that quote, Raf, is that it basically reads: "encouraging religious freedom by allowing a government to dictate religion to its citizens." It's the juxtaposition of "dictating" with "avoid impeding" that is a huge problem - and not just rhetorically. If that is Obama's definition of freedom, then we are in trouble.

For a bit of sarcasm for any hard-core pro-choice liberals: it's like saying that we should not impede Christianity by dictating that women not abort. Obviously messed up when you put it that way, but Obama's rhetoric is, as always, more slippery than that.

It's pretty easy to be bothered by this on a close parsing. So I could be bothered about it if I wanted.

But I agree strongly with Rafique's suggestion that this was an attempt to appeal to the muslim audience. Slippery? Sure. An attempt to explicitly define a policy approach in one sentence? No effing way, not at all.

When all is said and done, I think Obama sensibly wants only to suggest to muslims that America is willing to be respectful of muslim mores and perspectives whenever possible. IMO, this is a clearly a sentence crafted to gloss over some base cultural conflicts. Sorry folks, that's a very LARGE part of what diplomacy is. Getting right to the heaet of the areas of greatest conflict? Not so much.

Hopefully conservatives won't lose their minds when I point out that we're talking about brands of multicultural philosophy. IMO, too many folks are far too eager to dismiss valid concerns in this domain in favor of pumping up hardline support for their own perspective. Everyone wants to skip forward to the part where they detail all of the many areas in which they are unwilling to compromise and explain why any such compromise would inevitably lead to the death of our ideals and, well, TEOTWAWKI.

If time passes fruitfully towards compromise and decent coexistence, we we will have to pass through a stages where brave muslims are willing to act and speak in iconclastic ways in regard to clothes, expressions of opinions, and so on. And then authority has to stomach some of that. Or run someone over with a tank.

Where are the good answers on the hijab issue? It's a freaking minefield. As Pat points out, if muslim women are legally and institutionally free to choose whether or not to wear hijabs in schools, then they are subject to the wrath of conservative islam for potentially choosing wrongly. If we dictate clothing choice, we establish a policy that is hostile to traditional values and to religion in general.Rock, I'd like you to meet hard place.

So, Obama's speechwriters came up with no better than the forked-tongue expression being parsed above. Frankly, I am good with that. We'll establish a basis for getting along with muslims one day at a time and one issue at a time, and one compromise at a time. By interacting with each other on a daily, issue-by-issue basis, muslims will come to learn the ropes of how a modern pluralistic democratic culture tries to muddle along. Fractiously. Contentiously. But with a low yet real baseline of civility. If the only way you can getalong with someone is by agreeing with them all the time, that's a problem.

In the end, I think the lesson almost has to be that tolerance is tolerance. It's not splendid, clear, unrelenting delight. If it was all delight there would be nothing for which simple tolerance was required. Tolerance is not a rainbows-ponies=ice cream sundaes kind of thing. Any sensible bran of multicultural philosophy makes this clear.

The United States is basically a tolerant country - with it's enormous diversity, it has to be. And obsessing about what people wear - much less dictating what they may wear - is, as Obama suggests, not the American way (I wouldn't really think it was the French way either, but what do I know...) Yet, suggesting that the "dictating of what clothes a Muslim woman should wear" is primarily a Western problem is disingenuous, if not ridiculous, even though that kind of pandering clearly won much support for this speech (and I don't rule out that the end can justify such petty rhetorical dishonesty - I happen to think the speech moved the world forward). But changing the word order makes the sentence both truer and more important: "We cannot disguise hostility towards liberalism behind the pretence of any religion."