I don't see a need for religious-based tartans. Despite having an established church (The Church of Scotland) Scotland is a secular nation with a thriving multi-cultural, and multi-faith, secular population. Tartans based on family, or location (district tartans), show the wearer to be an integrated part of that community, even if their ancestral roots come from some other place.

Religion-based tartans would seem to be divisive, rather than inclusive, as they imply that their use should be restricted only to persons of that faith.

That there isn't a Presbyterian tartan, or a Catholic tartan, or an Episcopalian or Hindu tartan, speaks volumes for the cultural attitude which subscribes to the belief that a person's religion is a private matter between himself and God. In Scotland, at least, this tolerance of belief structures can be traced back to the reign of Queen Mary, who wished to give her subjects the right to worship as they pleased. This attitude still pervades most of present day Scottish society and, indeed, the entirety of the mainstream of western European cultural thought.

Insofar as western society, as a whole, is tolerant of most belief structures why should it be necessary to attempt to set oneself apart from the mainstream by creating a sense of "a closed community within an open society"? Surely the outward appearance is one of choosing sides or, perhaps more accurately, abandoning or turning one's back on the greater community in which they live.

Although many individuals have turned tartan and tartan wearing into a near religion, it is, and always has been, a flag of secular allegiance.

Perhaps it would be wise to leave it so.