From this article, France is considering a new bill that would ban full-body Muslim dress. Obviously, many folks there are not happy with it. France’s reasons:
Islam does not require women to cover their faces with niqabs or burqas
It can be a gateway to radical Islam
It can be considered an attack on gender equality and other French values
It could gnaw away at the nation’s secular foundation
It is a hindrance to public security (the covering of the face)
I’m torn, myself. But I also believe that sooner or later, terrorist attacks will make their way here to the US, and when that happens, lots of public opinions will change. This may be one. What say you?
Well you can’t run around in public naked. If they won’t allow you to do that, I dont see why they cant restrict you from running around like a mummy either.
I really, really, really dislike religion in general and specific. But at the same time, that’s my value and choice and it should be up to the individual if they want to follow their fantasies the way they want to.
I’m of the opinion that laws that are perceived as specifically targeting Muslim communities is more likely to create terrorists than leaving people alone.
In that sense I’m generally against this. However, I agree with the public safety aspect of it --there are laws in most areas in the US against wearing masks in public, due in part to the KKK and other criminals. I’m down for that. But it doesn’t seem like that’s how they’re framing this argument at all.
“Over my dead body” is a little strong, but the general sentiment is close enough.
I don’t have any issues with requiring a temporary removing of veils for immediate security reasons. For example I’m fully on board for requiring it for photo I.D.'s or if a law enforcement officer requests it for some real reason ( like checking a photo I.D. ).
But a permanent ban raises a number of issues, including:
1.) Abridgement of religious freedom.
2.) Personal humiliation for those raised with them ( or have just chosen to wear them as adults ) who would be embarrassed to be in public without one.
3.) Backfiring by limiting the movement of women who might now be subject to greater confinement by zealous male relatives.
4.) Alienating and thereby possibly helping to radicalize the affected population ( this happened to the Shah ).
Absolutely disgusting law. In the case of say, a full body burqa, I may not like the idea of it, but I don’t think anyone should be forbidden to make that choice for herself.
It is a requirement of Islam that both men and women dress “modestly”. That has often (although hardly unanimously) been interpreted to mean that women should cover their heads.
FWIW, Jews have similar strictures, which is why very Orthodox Jewish women of Eastern European extraction wear wigs. (This is a sort of Ashkenazi tradition. Very Orthodox Mizrachi women will often wear headscarves similar to those of Muslim women.)
ETA: For further clarification, women wearing the veil is an ancient Arab cultural idea of female modesty that has been exported to non-Arab Muslim country. AFAIK, there’s nothing in say, Malaysian or Turkish or Iranian culture that would view wearing veils as necessary for modesty, but it was absorbed into those cultures along with Islam.
I don’t agree with Muslim-predominant countries requiring women to wear burka/hijab; and I don’t agree with laws banning them either. Respect women enough to let us decide what the hell we want to wear.
Problematic. The basic Qur’anic injunction is as Kyla stated - ‘modesty’. How that is defined is thorny, though at least covering the hair seems pretty widely ( but not universally ) accepted. Those that favor face-veiling as mandatory point to a variety of hadith to back their more specific claims. Or to put it another way, you can certainly make an argument that it is religiously mandated, just as some Jews and Christians have in times past.
It’s certainly a minority view, but a minority in the millions. Let’s call it a potential abridgement and not something I’d care to argue in front of the Supreme Court ;).
The only argument I can accept for banning them is the security rational. People should be able to dress as they like for any reason. I don’t care if they are doing it for a religious reason or not.
If people want to run around nude I’m even OK with that.
IMO the state needs a good reason for dictating what you can or can not wear.
If they want to say you can’t go into a bank or an airport with your face covered, I can accept that.
If they want to require shirt shoes and pants for public health reasons that’s good enough for me.
I mean, France is a country that offers its citizens great rights-so if Islamic immigrants don’t like their laws, they can leave! What right do immigrantshave, to push their values on the rest of French society?
I would not want to live in a strongly islamic country-firts because I don’t like the culture, and second, because i believe in the separation of church and state.
If the immigrants don’t like the local culture, then why do they come?
It’s fascistic in effect to dictate a type of garment women must wear in public, be it women or men wo do the dictating. Enforcing a law that abolishes this type of fascism is absolutely necessary. If any native European group went public with demands on how their kind must dress, there’d be an uproar and no demands of needing to understand different cultures would be heard.
What if it can be proved it isn’t really what they’d choose to wear? Many of the middle eastern girls that I went to high school with would have loved such clothing to be illegal. They dreaded growing up and having to wear the full coverings.
It stinks of all counts, but it’s not even a good safety measure. I mean, who’s easier to pick out in a crowd: The woman in the burqua or the woman in the jeans and t-shirt?
Well, if you’re looking for someone in a burqua, then the answer is easy. If you’re looking for a specific face (as is usually the case), then…
I’d also throw out there that this style of dress is IMO (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone) a cultural throwback to an age of unabashed inequality. I don’t know the tenets of Islam enough to know if it clearly subjugates women. But I definitely see a clear link between Muslims and cultures where this subjugation is practiced. As far as I’m concerned, this cultural philosophy needs a rude shove into the 21st century, and the stripping away of the burqua should be a part of that leap forward. And maybe a law to that effect is the first step in that direction.
I know that the first report I see wherein terrorists use burquas to conceal themselves will push me right off the fence. The two long poles in France’s argument are that the dress can be a gateway to radicals, and the public security thing. I think if France could come up with some solid links rather than hypotheticals to support those two, it would have a strong case.