I found the letter from Husin Tapa amusing and I think he missed the point.

The point is, why do we need the authority to decide on our personal choice to hire a maid based on her religion or whatever other attributes.

I have a distant relative living in a small town who had a Tamil family look after their daughter. The result? She speaks Tamil as well as her mother tongue. That is their choice ... nobody and no authority should tell them they cannot do this.

If we follow Husin's argument, non-Muslim families should not hire Muslim maids. And Catholic families should not hire Protestant maids. I wonder how many reasonably well-educated adults hold such a view.

The guiding principle should be this - as long as an action does not affect the society, the authority should have no right to dictate what one should or should not do.

And as far as I can see, a Muslim family hiring a non-Muslim maid (or vice-versa) would have no impact on anybody else.