Burqa Ban

France took the first step towards banning face veils and burqas today, when a bill to that effect passed resoundingly in their National Assembly (think "House of Representatives"). You can read about it here. It still has a long way to go. Their Senate needs to pass it, and then France's Council of State has to determine if it is constitutional. . Although I am a firm believer in individual rights, I fully support this measure. France is a self-proclaimed secular republic, and the wearing of a burqa is a blatant piece of religious luddism, and goes against the principle of gender equality. In this case, that's enough to trump individual expression. . It would be interesting to see how such an initiative would fare in the US. It does have precedent. In the early 20th Century, a number of states passed "Anti Mask" laws. This was a (successful) response to the Ku Klux Klan. Forcing them to show their faces severely crippled their movement, and no one cared whether this infringed upon the rights of these hate-mongering, murderous terrorists. .

It should also be noted that when one moves to a place like Saudi Arabia, one is expected to conform to their theocratic norms. That means no booze, no Bibles, and no enticing the righteous Saudi Arabian males to lustful thoughts by wearing western fashion.

. OTOH, fair is fair. If western nations have the right to impose their value systems on Muslim immigrants, then so do Islamic countries. I find the burqa reprehensible, but if, say, the governing body of Afghanistan holds the opposite view, then we need to stop trying to enlighten them by attempting to convert them to our western values.