Way back when I was working as a staffer for U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, there was a government shutdown that lasted about 20 days. As I was “non-essential personnel,” I was out of work for that time. And, like most middle-aged men, I got lazy and decided to see what would happen if I didn’t shave for the duration of the shutdown. 

Well, I grew a beard, and while it felt quite novel after having spent over 25 years as an active-duty military officer, who shaved every day, it came in, well, pretty darn gray. Needless to say, the beard didn’t last too long. It felt weird to begin with and it made me look far older than my clean-shaven and rather youthful face (Ed: careful, stick to the truth) normally does.

I thought of that beard this morning as I read a recent Colorado Politics story about a guy who really wanted to keep his beard and about the government official who forced him to shave. It seems a man in custody followed Islam, and for him, a beard was a vital symbol of his faith. The existing policies of the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center acknowledged the fact that beards can have religious significance, and therefore individuals for whom a beard is a matter of faith are excused from mandatory shaves. Yet when the gentleman was taken into custody, he was ordered to shave his beard. When he objected, he was threatened with solitary confinement. He felt coerced and ultimately was shaven, which left him feeling “humiliated, demoralized and dehumanized.”

Now, there are many, many things I don’t understand in life. I don’t get how people can support Ohio State football. I don’t get how people eat hot dogs without catsup. And I don’t get organized religion. Again, I’m not talking about belief in God or personal faith; rather, I’m talking out structured faith organizations with specific rules. And here is where I’m going to tick off a bunch of you nice folks and kind readers: I don’t get how muttering a specific phrase can be seen as invoking a divine power. I don’t understand how wearing a specific article of clothing makes God like you better. And I don’t understand how not having a beard angers God.

And it doesn’t matter that I don’t understand any of these, because it is your right to believe anything you want. As Jefferson said, “…it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” I don’t get to decide what you believe, and you can’t require me to follow your religious requirements, although super-religious people have tried, around the globe and here in the US, but I digress… 

Happily, the U.S. 10^th Circuit Court agrees, and has found for the individual involved. He should have been able to keep his beard, as it was part of a deeply held personal belief.

As I have droned on about in many earlier columns, the test of whether you truly believe in something like religious freedom doesn’t come when you stand up for your own preferred faith. No, the test comes when you stand up for other people being allowed to follow the prescripts of their faiths. Now it is true that no right, religious or other, is completely unfettered by the law. You can’t claim, say, that robbing a bank is part of your religious dogma. You can say it (free speech), but you will go to jail if you do it. But if the Pope came out tomorrow and stated that all good Catholic men must grow mutton chop sideburns (kids: think “Wolverine”) and lots of followers of that faith started growing said sideburns, the government would have no right to force anyone to shave them off, in violation of the Pope’s order. By the way, if the Google search engines pick up on the part about the Pope ordering mutton chops and it goes viral on Fox News, you’ll know where that story started.

I readily admit, it was an easy call for me to shave my old-man beard. It meant nothing to me. And as I am largely free of formal ecclesiastical fetters, it would be easy for me to mock those for whom facial hair is a religious symbol. But that is little different, it seems to me, than nuns who wear habits or ministers who wear fancy robes, or Neopaganists who (it is claimed) wear nothing at all. It just isn’t my business.

The court was correct in admonishing the law enforcement folks who forced a shave on a devoted Muslim, no matter how well-intended that act might have seemed to them. If you expect to live in a society wherein your particular religious beliefs are protected by the government while others have their beliefs stifled, I urge you to reread the Constitution. If anyone’s religious practices (within reason) are denied, your own practices are at risk. 

We are only free when everyone is free.