A/HRC/34/50/Add.1 60. The Special Rapporteur did not hear about other religious communities in Denmark that celebrated same-sex marriages during their religious services. However, this may change in the future. While interlocutors from various communities with whom he discussed the theme usually showed quite tolerant attitudes, a study published in 2015 reported ongoing homophobia in certain conservative religious circles, across various religions. This is certainly an issue that warrants further attention, communicative outreach and discussions. 61. Until some years ago, the Islamic headscarf used to be interpreted by some as women being given an inferior status to men. However, such perceptions are changing. The Women’s Council, an umbrella organization that has existed in Denmark since 1899 and brings together 44 women’s organizations from various sectors of society, generally accepts the hijab and the few hijab-wearing women who operate within the Council. The Council supported a woman who had lost her job at a supermarket because she had insisted on wearing the headscarf at work. The complaint she filed had been turned down by the Supreme Court in 2005. Members of the judiciary conjectured that today a similar case might be treated differently within the court system, owing to changing perceptions and attitudes in society. It should be noted that a law enacted in 2010 forbids judges and juries to wear religious or political symbols while in court. While the importance of maintaining a strict appearance of impartiality in a court of law is undisputed, such legislation could have a disparate effect on different religious groups, as only a few (the hijab for Muslim women and turbans for Sikh men being the best-known examples) require their members to wear certain garments as part of their religious observance. The Special Rapporteur encourages further discussions on this issue. IX. School education, awareness-raising and interreligious dialogue 62. Throughout their entire formal education, Danish students learn about religion. The subject aims to provide information so as to empower students to reflect on and discuss themes connected to religion and to make responsible personal choices in that area. In spite of such knowledge-orientation, however, the discipline itself highlights “Christendom” in its title. While during the first seven years of schooling the focus of religious education is on Christianity, children in grades eight and nine are taught about world religions in general. Although the teaching does not include any religious practices in school, those parents or students who object on conscientious grounds can have their children exempted without difficulty. When visiting a school in the neighbourhood of Norrebro in Copenhagen, the Special Rapporteur talked with teachers and students at grade 9 about their experiences and learned that religious themes also regularly come up in disciplines outside of the subject “Christendom”. Critics of the Danish curriculum have voiced concerns that the amalgamation of “Christian values” with “Danishness” may lead to marginalizing children from minority families. 63. Beside public schools, which constitute the backbone of the Danish school system, some 500 private schools (“free schools”) exist, many of which are run by religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church, various Muslim organizations and the Jewish Community, which has one school in Copenhagen. According to information provided by the Church of Scientology, a few free schools in Denmark have adopted teaching methods of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology. 64. While private educational institutions exist at all levels of the school systems, from kindergartens to gymnasiums, this is not the case at the university level. Concerning university training, Denmark holds a strict monopoly, with the effect that private institutions of learning with academic aspirations do not receive any official recognition. 16