The fashion industry would fight it to the death.
Well, I’m pretty nonchalant as well, mainly because the scenario you propose seems fairly unlikely. Amongst the wide array of Future Possibilities That I Should Maybe Lose Sleep Over, this one is pretty low on the list.
I kid you not, one of my childhood friends (in Pakistan) has a successful business designing fashionble hijab for a particular sects (Aga Khanis and Dawoodi Bohras).
Wouldn’t really bother me. I’d be perfectly OK with it, and if the law wasn’t OK with it, then it’s an unconstitutional law…it had BETTER be OK with it. If we ever outlaw that, we’ve stopped being the USA. And, of course, I do think that for security reasons, law enforcement should be able to remove face coverings for ID purposes.
I agree that this scenario is almost impossible to occur, so I don’t worry that it will. I just wanted to see how people would feel if it came to pass, just to see if there is a threshold beyond which they would say “enough”. Since people so far in this thread seem to not care if 100% of the population is doing this, it’s pretty clear that they have no such threshold, and it’s also pretty clear that they won’t care if a small percentage of the country does it. The 100% scenario, while extremely unlikely, was meant to set a baseline for people’s attitudes on this issue.
Isn’t Cafe Society the preferred forum for SF or Alternate History?
Less than one half that number of LDS reside in the USA.
I don’t think it’s my business.
I don’t think it’s the government’s business either.
I’ve been places where a large number of people are roaming the streets in nun’s habits. Didn’t seem to bother anyone.
Yes, the number of Muslim women in the US, and likely France and Canada, are miniscule, and so even if every single one of them wore a burka it wouldn’t amount to much. But, let’s keep this discussion away from the particulars of the Muslim minority and look at the principle of allowing large groups of people in full-body (and face) covers to go out in public.
As I asked above
[ul]
[li]Would you be OK with that?[/li][li]Would the law/government be OK with that?[/li][/ul]
[/QUOTE]
I’ve read one piece asserting that there aere 59,000 Catholic nuns in the US. While not in the tens of millions, it’d be hard to argue that nuns are not a visible presence.
Even if they had ID, how would you know who you were looking for?
Lots of places have laws limiting or prohibiting the wearing of masks.
http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/mcs/maskcodes.html
I’m pretty sure that people 16 and up can’t legally wear them where I live, but it’s not really enforced. My husband bought beer on Halloween while wearing a skull mask.
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I’m glad the laws are more in line with my views on this subject than with the majority of respondents in this thread
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Most of those laws, which I briefly checked out, seem not to have an exemption for religious purposes. If that’s the case, how do women wearing burkas fit into this? Are they breaking these laws?
Mormons are supposed to wear full-body coverings, just not over the face. For that matter, plenty of people cover their entire bodies during wintertime in colder parts of the US.
Body covering thus presumably isn’t the issue; this is just about covering the face.
Even as to that, during cold winters, lots of people wear scarves, hats, earmuffs, sunglasses, so heavily covered that their identities are obscured. It looks like these people are breaking the law in many states, but I’d be shocked if anyone had ever actually been prosecuted on this basis.
Well, by the standards of your OP, it’s hard not to be nonchalant about it. Some group of people decide to start dressing a certain way? Big deal.
Now, however, if the dress were associated in some way with a brand of extremism that in its worst manifestations was associated with violence and repression, and all of a sudden tens of millions of people started to adhere to it…well, then I might be concerned.
No, they are just supposed to dress modestly.
“In everyday living, immodest clothing such as short shorts, miniskirts, tight clothing, shirts that do not cover the stomach, and other revealing attire are not appropriate. Men and women—including young men and young women—should wear clothing that covers the shoulder and avoid clothing that is low cut in the front or back or revealing in any other manner. Tight pants, tight shirts, excessively baggy clothing, wrinkled apparel, and unkempt hair are not appropriate. All should avoid extremes in clothing, hairstyle, and other aspects of appearance. We should always be neat and clean, avoiding sloppiness or inappropriate casualness.” (From the pamphlet For The Strength of Youth, found at lds.org)
You mean like wearing blue jeans, outdoors jackets, and ballcaps?
In that case though, isn’t your problem with the extremism and not the dress?
Would you have a problem with millions of people wearing a particular tie if that tie was associated with a nasty brand of extremism?
Not dhh (deaf/hard of hearing) people who speechread I get most of what I “hear” from speechreading.
Just like everybody else has already stated, I wouldn’t care as long as law enforcement officials and the likes had the right to demand of people to take it off for ID purposes.
I worked in the semiconductor industry for many years. Workers in a wafer fab wear
“bunny suits” that pretty much are the same as burqas, although they are a little tighter fitting. At first, everyone looks alike, but you’d be surprised how quickly you become able to recognize people by non-facial cues. Height, build, the way someone walks. Not as easily as otherwise, but not too difficult.
As for the OP, there are some serious safety issues with burqas, as they limit vision considerably. I’m not sure that a driver wearing one would be able to see well enough. Otherwise, knock yourself out. When I went to Catholic schools, the nuns pretty much wore burqas, except for the face covering.
Nope. Clothes are what we wear to keep us warm. You know: food, shelter, clothing. Anything that is an excess of that is open for discussion. When you don something for affectation, society has the right to judge it and put limits on it. And we have the right to have people walk around so that they can be recognized, and can easily be held accountable for their actions. That is the U.S., anyway. If you don’t like it, there’s always places like Saudi Arabia. Pack you stuff and good riddance.
Interesting point. However, don’t bunny suits have visors through which you can see peoples faces?
“except the face covering”: that is crucial. Without face covering, it’s not a burka, and it’s not a problem.