| Summary: | In 2003 the German constitutional court passed a law that made it possible for federal states in Germany to ban the headscarf for teachers in school which led several of them to do just that. After an indictment of two Muslim women the constitutional court repealed this law and allowed teachers to wear a headscarf in school 2015. This essay takes its starting point in the medial debate that resulted from this court decision. The aim of this study was to examine this debate with a starting point in the general statements and against the background of parts of Casanovas theory of deprivatization and parts of Habermas theories of religion in the public sphere. The first research question asks about central themes in the debate, the used arguments and how they differ between the laws supporter and opponents. The second research question addresses the issue of which role the debaters assign religion in the state. The third question is about how the statements can be better understood by relating them to parts of the theoretical concepts used for this study. This essay investigates these research questions by applying the method of content analysis on eleven debate articles of four major German newspapers. Through the interaction of theories and material the three central themes relation between religion and state, liberalism and freedom of religion could be identified. Some arguments on these themes which were common include the classification of religion as something negative or positive in the public sphere, the denial of religious individuals to meet liberal requirements and the requirement of equality which is guaranteed by freedom of religion. While this study shows that the debaters share some common views on the themes, there are clear differences between the laws supporter and opponents. Furthermore, this study concludes that while the laws supporter assign religion a role in the public sphere, the laws opponents assign religion to the private sphere even if some of them preferably would like to only assign Islam to the private sphere. Through contemplation of the results by using the chosen theories the understanding of them could be increased.
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