"Judges: German ban on head-scarves includes nuns' veils "

I'm torn: is this a good thing or a bad thing? On one level it's good that there are actually nun/sisters in Germany that are wearing habits in public schools and they're being persecuted for it(who would've thought?). Of course the bad part is the fact that there is such a limitation on religious freedom in modern Germany. My what we take for granted.

From EarthTimes.com

Mannheim, Germany - A law which prohibits Muslim women teachers from wearing head-scarves in a German state's public schools also forbids Catholic nuns from wearing their veils in regular classrooms, judges said Wednesday. The administrative tribunal of Baden-Wuerttemberg state set out the position in a detailed written judgement, two months after ruling verbally that a woman convert to Islam, aged 58 at the time, could not teach in her scarf.

The south-western state has a law that bans "exterior expressions of religious confession." Germany has been split on the scarf issue, with some states tolerating teachers in scarves and others sacking them if they refuse to teach bare-headed.

The judges in the city of Mannheim interpreted the ban on religious dress as applying to all religions, whether to nuns and monks in habits or to male Jewish teachers wearing the kippa.

The law expressly exempts Catholic religious who teach Catholic doctrine classes in public schools, and the judges said three nuns in the state who teach other subjects had personal exemptions that would not apply to any other sisters in the future.