In a number of posts recently, I have argued that there is no such thing as 'no religion' in the State; there is no such thing as 'neutrality'. Secular is the name of a god, not of nothing. Thus, all of life and every area of it must give allegiance to some god or other, some fundamental principle of order, some basic call to conform.

And so Jared Miller makes the point in Credenda that French secularism is finally revealing what it truly is: a religion as fundamental as any other, and the self-proclaimined posessor and regulator of the public sphere. As such, it has defined the fences around "social harmony and social cohesion" in the first of what will surely be a series of thou shalt nots: in this case, thou public school students shalt not wear the identifying marks of other gods.

No competition will be allowed.