Ok, but Face recognition software won;t work. And, there’s also the other Safety to consider- it’s hard to see, thus it’s more dangerous to walk or drive with traffic.
I can see laws requiring them to remove the face veil for identification, in court, to an officer, at the airport, when operating a motor vehicle, for driver’s photo. etc. I’d have no problem with that as it just makes good sense to me.
However to ban veils universally seems foolish to me. Especially since it’s France. Crikey, if it was any less fashion conscious country I could sort of understand, but really - France. If this was the latest fashion off the Paris runways, being banned in another country France would be all up in arms over it.
I’m not sure how it’s unconstitutional. Wouldn’t you first have to show that the burqua is a part of the religion (which it seems it’s not)? Then I think you’d have to show how banning it prohibits the free practice of Islam.
Well, first of all, I’m not advocating anything, much less “restricting womens’ right to choose their own attire.” I’m specifically looking at the burqua, which can potentially be shown as more problematic than, say, KKK garb, which AFAIK is legal to wear. If it can be shown that the burqua does indeed attract radical Muslims and is a detriment to public security, then I think there’s reason to consider such a law banning it.
According to the Economist
I’m not asking you to read the whole Constitution or anything, because that would be hard, but if you could take a moment to check dictionary.com for “attire”, then maybe we could continue this conversation.
Just for the record, I’m not a fan of the burqua. I’d love to see it eradicated through education. But we’re talking about a law that singles out the most vulnerable members of an unpopular religion, and that’s a bad law.
Nowhere in this are the immigrants pushing their shit on the rest of the French.
I’ve known women who, surprisingly, felt the opposite way. Not always necessarily full out burqua, but the gist of it was there.
So it seems we’ve reached a point where we realize the veil is a complicated issue with many different viewpoints where coinciding values can wind up on opposing positions. Gee.
KKK garb isn’t out-and-out illegal. You can wear it, but many states and municipalities have laws against groups of people wearing masks in public.
This. I believe one of the reasons why the major post-9/11 terrorist attacks have occurred in Europe and not America (Madrid, London) is because “our” Muslims are much more integrated. This is the view is put forth in Marc Sageman’s Leaderless Jihad (link goes to WaPo summary). I can imagine an argument that banning the veil would help integrate these communities better, but I don’t think it’s a very good one and seems disingenuous. Like the minaret ban in Switzerland, it seems motivated more out of xenophobia. I estimate this law would backfire because it specifically targets an already segregated minority group, and the campaign for this vote would stir anti-Muslim fervor, which would make that group of people feel even more discriminated against and unwelcome in their own country. That is how young men (and women too) become radicalized.
You seem to be presuming that specific religions are these giant monolithic things with everyone practicing it the exact same way. They are not. Some Catholics still attend a Latin High Mass on Christmas (and sometimes more often); most do not. If you banned Latin Masses, sure you could argue that they can still have Mass in English, and that Latin Mass isn’t required by Catholic doctrine, but you’d still be interfering with how they practice their faith.
Separation of church and state requires that the state keep their noses out of religion just as much as religion keeps it’s nose out of the state.
I agree, education and, when needed, helping women to leave oppressive cultures if they want to is the way to go. Dictating by law to anyone what modesty “should” mean to anyone is presumptive and cruel. We can make accommodations for security and safety without banning them outright.
You’ve mentioned this twice. Do you happen to have a cite for that?
Missed the edit…
The actual wording of the First Amendment:
A good law, and no one is establishing any religion by this law. My city bans masks and that is legal, so no problem.
A classmate of mine wears the headscarf and pretty much said the same thing you did about the burqa. “It’s supposed to be about modesty and if you’re wearing one of those in Texas you’re sticking out like a sore thumb.”
Is there an established religion that mandates the wearing of masks? If not, then what’s the relevance?
I don’t like it myself, but the notion that it will do anything at all against terrorism is ludicrous.
But w/r/t feminism, just because some women wish to wear certain styles of clothing does not mean that it is not demeaning to women and rooted in a highly unequal tradition (which is not to say that Sharia law was originally antifeminist per se because at the time it was actually a relative improvement in the status of women, it’s just that it hasn’t changed in over 1000 years.)
However, to go further than passing a moral judgement on it and pass laws about dress is un- or counterproductive except in security related contexts such as licenses or identification and keeping with other existing laws (not all of which I agree with).
You seem to have missed the bit in boldface.
In Quebec at the time of the recent silliness over reasonable accommodations, there were a few manufactured controversies about women voting while wearing face coverings. When some of the people arguing about it finally got around to actually asking Muslim women about it, the response basically was, “Of the tiny number of Muslim women in Quebec who actually wear a face covering, virtually none have any problem with showing their faces for official reasons.”
This pretty much where I come out on the issue, but I voted “ethical gray area.”
I live outside Dearborn, Michigan. There are 60,000 middle easterners there. I see burkas every where. I just happen to think they are completely nude underneath them. Life is easy, shoes and a portable tent.
That’s what I was saying-don’t make it compulsory(ie: your high school friends), don’t forbid it. Legally. You want to dress like a nun, and aren’t doing so out of fear (of social ostracism, scorn, shamed, getting the shit slapped out of you,etc) and you don’t obstruct your field of vision so bad you end up driving on the sidewalk or otherwise become a menace, knock yourself out.
When the menfolk start telling us women how to dress-for our own good, of course- we get pretty cranky. That said, not everyone’s going to walk through the doors of whatever we individually think of as enlightenment and liberation, even when someone’s kicked that door open for them.
Have you ever tried to drive with anything that obscures your vision? I can’t find a cite that sez driving with your windshield painted black is bad either. :rolleyes:Even the best of the burkas completely takes away all peripheral vision.
I had to drive once with a gas mask, and that was pretty damn bad, and a face covering like that would be many times worse.Of course, in the Islamic nations where it’s required, they don’t allow women to drive, either.