Saudi women rarely if ever wear burkas. The garment is more common to the east of the Gulf States. That said if Saudi Arabia was claiming to be a secular state that respected the religious freedom and civil rights for all people (which I guarantee you it does not), refusing citizenship to a woman who did not wear some form of hijab would be the height of hypocrisy and the world should give them hell for it (in addition to what they deserve for any number of other crimes). France is very strident that it is not a religious state and makes public declarations that the respect of the civil rights of all people however. And women are people. Not being forced to touch someone (for whatever reason a woman chooses) is a basic civil right.
Bigotry is wrong, but there are certain aspects of life where bigotry is a right. You are not required to not discriminate when you are dating for example. Citizens of a nation also have the right to decide who will be admitted to their nation and under what conditions. No people is morally obligated to make themselves a minority group. A nation like Lithuania has an absolute right, for the sake of their own survival as a people, to decide that Lithuania will always have a Lithuanian majority. They are not morally obligated to take in every Russian who wants a better job.
The woman in question, and the French government, are both being ridiculous - the latter somewhat more so.
I’m being picky here but “bigotry” and “discrimination” are not the same thing. Bigotry is, by definition, intolerant and obstinate. It implies an unwillingness to consider objective facts. A person who is not attracted to short people, or skinny people, or people who appear to be Chinese, is not being a “bigot,” inasmuch as they are surely quite aware who they’re attracted to; they have all the evidence there is. Discrimination is not necessarily ignorant or intolerant. Bigotry is.
Then it is absolutely not bigotry for a nation to limit the number of people who enter it and to set conditions for entry and citizenship.
Do you really think anyone’s going to fall for this transparent rhetorical ploy?
It’s bigotry to act in a bigoted manner. It’s bigotry to have laws and policies founded on bigotry. The existence of laws and policies is as bigoted as what animated their existence to begin with.
If I say hanging a Black man because of his race is bigoted, I’m not saying rope itself is bigoted. Trying to twist it like that is, itself, bigotry, in that it’s an attempt at defending bigotry by muddying the waters.
Let me use some of the “logic” I’ve heard here.
I practice an unusual religion, where we believe music is the devil’s work, and we don’t allow it. Period.
I want to become a citizen of Somewhereania where the requirements to be come a citizen are to have a command of the Somewhereanian, commit no crimes during a two year waiting period, pass a history of Somewhereanian test, and be able to sing the national anthem.
According to some of you, me being denied citizenship because I won’t sing the anthem would be wrong. Sorry - no cigar. Them’s the rules.
The problem with you all is that you are somehow elevating the rules of a religion over the rules of the land. Anyplace that lets the rules of religion supercede the laws of the land is in fact “lawless”. Maybe some sect allows child sacrifice under extreme circumstances, oh by all means, let them kill because of religious freedom. Sam thing goes for conflating a religion with cultural practices surrounding it. Let’s let in people who believe in and would practice honor killings.
You’re making things too complicated.
When the two conflict, law trumps religious rules. Period.
Except France does not legally require a woman to shake the hand of every man that wants to shake hands with her.
Well, yeah. So how do you defend it? Why does that rule exist, and why is it such a big deal that it can override a fundamental right like freedom of religion? Hell, why does it override the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression? This country sounds quite authoritarian, like it deprives people of their rights.
Of course a human right like freedom of religion triumphs over a state rule with no purpose. That’s what freedom of religion is. The state cannot force you to practice or not practice a particular religion. The sole exception is when there is some other compelling interest.
What you are pushing is the very thing that freedom of religion is against. You’re pushing that the state can override religion. If so, then why can’t the “rules” be that you have to be Catholic, or face a death sentence? I could just as easily argue “Them’s the rules,” like you did. But that would be stupid. Because the rules have to be good.
What you guys are supporting is saying that France has a right to force a woman to not practice her religion. For something that serves no purpose whatsoever. Whether she shakes his hand or not will not in any way change anything about the world. It’s just petty bullshit.
It’s a way to find an excuse to not allow a Muslim to become a citizen–similar to other attempts in France to attack Muslims. Just like your hypothetical song was probably created to keep out people of your hypothetical religion.
That is bigotry, and that is wrong.
Cool. The law says you can’t be an atheist. You have to be one of those snake carrying Pentecostals. Since you’re completely getting rid of freedom of religion, I’m sure you have no problem with that, right?
I mean, “Them’s the rules.”
BwanaBob: In deontological ethics, there’s a notion of balancing duties. For example, is it permissible for me to run a red light if I’m taking a gravely ill person to the emergency room? I, as a citizen, have a duty to obey traffic laws, but I also have a duty to not let someone die in my car if I could have prevented it; the second duty outweighs the first, so I must run the red light, at which point it becomes my duty to obey the consequences of that.
So. In the case you’re talking about, you have, on one hand, the state’s duty to recognize the free exercise of religion. On the other hand, you have… what, precisely? What duty do you claim counterbalances the first? Were we talking about human sacrifice, the duty to preserve the lives of those within its borders would obviously counterbalance the duty to recognize the free exercise of religion. But what duty do you claim exists in your hypothetical?
(Note: Deontological ethics is rule-based ethics. You want to talk about rules, you talk about deontology.)
Not sure I’m getting the responses here.
In the US, the law of the land takes precedence over religious doctrine. So you can’t claim you’re allowed to murder a “witch” because your religion says so, because murder is against the law.
Are you arguing that if a law seems “innocuous” or “foolish” then it can be ignored in order to practice your religion. That would be up to your conscience, but unless the law changes, you’d be liable for your lawbreaking if caught.
It would be up to a judge to show leniency/dismiss the charge given the circumstances in your red-light running to save a life.
Now if you want to change the law, tell your congressperson, protest, etc.
I assume France can change its laws if enough French citizens want it to change.
BwanaBob: So you have nothing to add, then.
Not a surprise, given the similar lack of arguments from everyone else on your side.
God fucking dammnit, I typed out a really extensive response and a glitch on this board crashed my web browser, deleting my post. Why doesn’t this site have an auto-save function?
People crying bigotry and freedom of religion over this need to get over themselves. It sounds as if most of you are Americans viewing this from an American perspective. France is very serious about maintaining secularity and if it means denying citizenship to people who feel that showboating their religion in a dogmatic fashion matters more than not fucking up their chance at citizenship then so be it. There are thousands upon thousands of naturalized French Muslims, so clearly they aren’t all that bigoted against them. They don’t have an issue with their citizens being religious so long as your manner of practicing your religion doesn’t erode on French cultural norms. Don’t countries have a right to preserve their culture, even it if means denying citizenship to individuals they feel are antithetical to that goal?
I wouldn’t dream of immigrating to a Muslim-majority or any theocratic state only to complain about how unfair it is that I can’t do the same things I was allowed to do in my secular homeland, and if I did attempt such a thing I doubt that a single soul on this board would feel an ounce of sympathy for me. If this woman feels that maintaining her conservative brand of Islam matters so much to her, why not instead immigrate to a country with similar cultural mores? It seems counterproductive to move to a country whose cultural values are diametrically opposed to yours and refuse to do your part to integrate. No one is entitled to citizenship they aren’t born into, it’s always a privilege. People are denied citizenship for seemingly petty reasons all the time everywhere. Rarely does it make headline news. Maybe this lady should try again in the future and hope to come across a more generous immigration officer. But she’d be a lot better off readjusting her beliefs or going somewhere more aligned with her faith.
What “law” are you referring to?
France apparently does not have a law requiring women to shake the hands of men, as others have already stated.
If it did you might have a point. But it doesn’t. So what’s with all the talk about the law of the land superseding religious belief?
Again, not an argument.
Preservation of culture is a weak attempt at an argument, given how young French culture is and how mutable it has always been. Your attempt at an argument is kneecapped by a basic knowledge of history, as others in this thread have already pointed out, so I won’t go into detail on it here.
Ah, back to the StormFront level of argumentation.
The whole point of this thread is whether such rules are morally permissible. They’re not, and nobody’s arguing they’re permissible for Islamic countries, so pretending someone has made that argument is dishonest and, given the broader context, quite racist. That’s one strike, and a serious one, so I’m done with you.
As with thefree speech (or lack thereof) case in Scotland (and the Austrian headscarf ban) this clearly shows why the US constitution is objectively better than the European alternative.
This is clearly, unambiguously, a violation of her right free exercise of religion. The state forcing you to have bodily contact with a man that contravenes you religious beliefs in order to receive citizenship is about about blatant as it gets (I’d also say it contravenes other fundamental rights that have nothing to with religion).
There are plenty of bigots in the US that would approve of this kind of thing (case in point being the current president), certainly enough to get a law like this passed, but it would quite clearly contravene the 1st amendment, so would get thrown out.
The fact the European bill of rights did not prevent this, but the US constitution would, shows how it is fundamentally worse at protecting its citizen’s fundamental rights.
Except this case shows they do. There may not be a law entitled “the law that forces women to have bodily contact with men against their will”. But the fact this happened and was upheld by the appeal court means the body of french law does require that women to shake the hands of men in order to get citizenship. There was a case where a woman was denied citizenship for refusing to shake a mans hand, a court considered the case and found it acceptable. So yes French law absolute 100% forces women to touch men in order to get citizenship. If you don’t believe me I can refer you to the this judgement.
It’s not that simple. The US has the Free Exercise Clause, and a Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The law may only curtail the free exercise of religion under certain conditions.
By way of example, the West Virginia Board of Education adopted a resolution requiring school children to salute the flag, under pain of punishment for insubordination. Jehovah’s Witnesses are prohibited by their faith from saluting earthly images, and a JW family brought suit. The Supreme Court found in their favor.
Thank you for answering for me.