Should a face veil, (niqab), be banned for Muslim women in a public role?

Great Debates
41

So, then you would celebrate if we effectively banned Orthodox Jewish men from serving in the US Congress by forbidding Congressmen from wearing head coverings because they look “unprofessional” along the same lines why suits are required.

Now, I understand that many on this thread would channel their inner Dice Clays, nod their heads and say “Yup, this is America, this is our country now Jews either adapt or get the fuck out of the country”(or adjust for the UK/France/etc.).

Thankfully most Americans don’t share in your beliefs and are more enlightened and don’t lose their shit over American Indians being allowed to have long hair, Jewish men wearing yarmulkas, Muslim men wearing Kufi caps, Jewish women wearing wigs, Muslim women wearing hijabs, and countless other religiously required garmets.

That’s how you build a tolerant pluralistic society where all are welcome rather than a stodgy, dying society desperately trying to impose its values on everyone.

Thankfully, despite what the X-Files would have you believe, you can’t fight the future.

42

This is one of the most ignorant posts ever put on this message board, a desperate attempt to see bigotry in it’s absence. This is the same “logic” used by those who deny the Holocaust. Don’t announce what I would celebrate because you have no clue.

If an employer has a reason to ban head coverings, any reason that they want, other than to specifically discriminate against a particular ethnic or religious group or groups then they should be allowed to do so. That’s what I said. Your reply didn’t have much at all to do with what I said, as usual.

43

I’m not sure why you’re engaging in personal insults since I didn’t hurl any at you.

Beyond that, if your position is it’s ok ban “head coverings” for any reason even if it has a discriminatory outcome so long as the stated claim is not discriminatory then yes, by that logic you should argue that it’s ok for employers, the US Congress, the New York City Council, or anyone to forbid male employees to wear “Yarmulkas” because one decides they don’t look “professional” or would turn off customers.

So yes, I genuinely assumed you’d feel that yes, it would be perfectly proper to declare that US Congressman on the floor of the house aren’t allowed to wear yarmulkas, due to decorum, just as they’re required to wear suits.

It seems to me that you’re the one who doesn’t recognize the logical conclusion of arguments you espoused.

I didn’t accuse you of “bigotry”.

Beyond that, are you seriously arguing that it would be bigotry if Orthodox Jewish males were not allowed to serve in the US Congress or Senate if they insisted on wearing yarmulkas?

That would strike me as horribly intellectually inconsistent.

44

Sure you did, you attempted to cast those that disagree with your very narrow view as Andrew Dice Clay-like xenophobes.

Not what I said. You added the “stated” part. I said as long as the reason was not discriminatory, not the “stated” reason.

I am sure you think I should argue that, since it fits your narrative, but elected representatives are not employees.

Employers should be able to require their employees to maintain a standard uniform for many reasons, including appearance, and should not cater to religious habits any more or less than other habits.

You think yarmulkes look unprofessional?

If they were not allowed to do so because of their ethnicity or religion then yes it would be bigotry, it’s pretty simple.

45

Anyway, it seems we’re confusing a few things.

Here in the US, due to our commitment to pluralism, tolerance and religious freedom, we don’t tend to feel that immigrants or minorities(whether ethnic or religious) should be forced to assimilate into our society and this is enshrined in the US Constitution.

That means we support, and this has been enforced by the courts, that if employers, including the US government are going to tell practitioners of certain Native American religions they need to cut their hair rather wearing it really long, force Sikhs to shave their beards, or making Jews work on Yom Kippur, they’re going to have to provide a compelling reason for that.

For example, if there are legitimate safety reasons why you need to keep your hair short or the job requires you to work every weekend and there’s no reasonable way to schedule it otherwise then claiming that “my religion requires me to cut my hair” or claiming “I’m Sabbath observant and can’t work on the weekends” does no good.

However, unsurprisingly, most businesses are able in most cases, to make accommodations which is why most businesses allow Jews to not work on the High Holy days and the US Marine Corps allows Jewish and Muslim Marines wear Yarmulkas and Kufi caps indoors even though Marines aren’t supposed to wear “cover” indoors.

Frankly, leaving morality aside, this seems to be vastly more effective than trying to force religious and ethnic minorities to somehow adapt their beliefs and values to the majority culture.

Moreover, this seems vastly more effective method of reducing religious and ethnic tension in a society than the suggested method of telling Muslims…“This is our country, our values take precedence and you adapt your’s to us”!

Anyway, back to the OP. It seems to me that there are certain “public roles” where women shouldn’t be allowed to have their faces covered and others where they should.

I do think people might remember that it’s a tiny minority of Muslim women in Europe who actually wear Burqas and beyond that, might want to wonder why so many feel pressured to wear them.

In my own experience when people feel the need to fall back on some cultural relic like that, it’s often because they’re not feeling welcome in the society they’re in.

46

Respectfully, since in the above scenario, they wouldn’t be banned “because of their ethnicity or religion” but because they felt the need to wear yarmulkas then no, based on your logic, it wouldn’t be “bigotry”.

Of course not.

However, since you claimed they could ban such “for any reason” then an employer can simply say “I think they look unprofessional” and boom Orthodox Jewish males either need to disregard their religious regulations or they’re not allowed to work there.

Along the same lines, based on your logic a restaurant that declares they won’t hire black waiters or servers because they think their white customers would be uncomfortable with their food being handled by black people wouldn’t be engaging in “bigotry” because they weren’t “discriminating on the basis of race or ethnicity” but reacting to their customers desires.

In fact, lots of employers used to make such arguments all the time(I.E. if we allow blacks into our restaurant/hotel, we’ll lose all our white customers).

47

It is in the interest of businesses to make certain accommodations to their employees preferences, whether they are religious or not. It makes it more likely that they will get high quality employees. My position is that employers should not be required to be more accommodating to the desires of their employees when those desires are religiously motivated. To do so is to give government enforced preference to religion, which is unconstitutional.

The only one suggesting that in this thread is your fictional character.

48

If there is a public interest in having a face uncovered, then it should be uncovered if that interest is of more practical importance than religious freedom, like on a piece of identification

49

The courts disagree.

If you think I’m wrong, ask some teachers in New York or RI what would happen if they tried to make Jewish teachers work on Jewish holidays.

50

Nobody disagrees with this, not even the government of Saudi Arabia.

Even Saudi Princesses have to uncover their faces to get their pictures taken for their passports.

51

Arguably, wearing a yarmulke is a social norm and not a religious requirement. Cite. Arguably, wearing a yarmulke is closer to a religious requirement than a social norm: same citation. As I see it, in a US context the question is whether the plaintiff/defendant can make a credible case that they are wearing one garment or another on the basis of religious conscience. In the case of the yarmulke or the Five Ks for the Sikhs, it’s pretty clear that religious considerations predominate, at least to me.

I also don’t have a problem with mandating reasonable accommodation in public spaces or among employers in the US. Indeed a yarmulke ban seems pretty clearly to be blatant discrimination on the basis of creed.

52

An employer could refuse to allow their employees to wear head coverings for many reasons, including but not limited to bigoted reasons. They should be allowed to enforce this restriction unless the restriction has discriminatory motivations.

Again not what I said, I said any non-bigoted reason. It comes down to what the motivation is, if this restriction is just an excuse to discriminate against Jews then it should not be allowed. If an employer has never wanted hats in her workplace for unrelated reasons then she should not be forced to allow religious headgear. She would be well advised to make the accommodations to widen the potential pool of qualified employees, just as she would be advised to accommodate popular non-religious behavior, but she should not be required to do so, in my view.

We decided long ago that “because my customers are bigoted” is a sub-category of bigoted reasons and thus not an acceptable justification.

53

The courts have historically allowed all sorts of preferences for religion, and they have been wrong.

54

Saudi Arabia has segregated institutions, though. Surely Saudi women are not forced to uncover their face or hair in the presence of unrelated men for these photos, as would be the case in North America. I am sure the Florida woman would have taken her veil off for her drivers license photo if Florida would have instituted gender apartheid in it’s DMV.

55

The title says niqab, the posts speak clearly of face coverings, so I’m not sure why you’re going on about hijabs and yarmulkes when I’m sure you know the difference. I run an office and would not concern myself with head coverings, until the point where we would have to accommodate an employee wearing a niqab because another wears ___ and another wears _____. Then, forget it, everyone’s going to lose, because I find niqabs offensive and I’d rather inconvenience everyone across the board than tolerate such a thing in the office. That should be clear enough.

If you honestly cannot understand that attitude, then perhaps we need a discussion on why making women comfortable and happy in their insulated bags isn’t the kind of acceptance, nor the kind of freedom, that we’re known for.

56

So you feel quite comfortable not only denying someone the ability to practice their religion as they believe it should be, but also to capriciously interfere with the choices of all your other employees based on nothing but your bigotry.

57

As freedom of religion is a fundamental constitutional right, such a thing should receive a higher scrutiny. A Jewish man wearing a yarmulke should have a greater interest in his “hat” that I would in wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap. If a reasonable accommodation can be made for the yarmulke, then it should be made.

But if a judge or a business owner has a stronger reason that just a whim or a general preference, and no accommodation can be made, then the religious activity must yield to the expectations of society.

58

Translation. Your opposition to them is simply because you find them offensive.

So, based on your logic anyone who finds the idea of men wearing yarmulkas, wearing ties, or having beards offensive can also ban them based strictly on their own bias.

Translation: I believe so much in women’s freedom that I’m going to tell those idiot Muslim women what they are and aren’t allowed to wear.

They’re obviously too stupid to think for themselves to they need enlightened white people like myself to think for them.

Beyond that, if your reference to niqabs as an “insulated bag” is a jaw-droppingly ignorant statement.

I’d recommend learning more before trying to impose your own values on women.

Lots of Europeans find the American practice of women shaving their legs, wearing thongs, and/or high heels quite shocking.

Based on your standards employers should be allowed to fire women who share their legs because it’s “not the kind of freedom, or the kind of acceptance we want.”

59

I think every reasonable person would agree with this.

60

I kind of strongly disagree. Consider the first part of the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” I, personally, am not at all obligated to respect your freedom of religion. I mean, if I want to, arbitrarily or with prejudice, bar Mormons from my front porch, I am not constrained by their right to exercise their religion. Similarly, if I run a business, I can (and have, as a supervisor) dictate to my employees that they absolutely may not witness their faith to other employees (or customers) on the shop floor. Freedom of religion is simply not guaranteed in the workplace, because employers are not “Congress”.