The question of whether or not France (or any other country) ought to ban the burqa isn’t as easy to answer as I would like for it to be. On the one hand, I’m generally in favor of freedom of expression and against unnecessary government mandates and regulations. On the other hand, I find the burqa deeply disturbing and problematic on a number of levels. Is this reaction of mine merely the result of personal prejudice and/or cultural conditioning? Or does it spring from something more objective and defensible? If the problems I have with the burqa are indeed rooted in something objective and defensible, are those problems severe enough to justify government intervention?

I’m not sure I’m able to answer those questions today.

Here are a few of the things I’m thinking about as I try to work my way towards an answer:

1) Attempts to justify or excuse the wearing of the burqa on religious grounds cut very little ice with me. Freedom of religion means freedom to *believe* whatever you want – not *do* whatever you want. Because what we do in public has an impact on the public, regulations governing what we do seem just and proper in principle.

Should a ban on the burqa in particular be considered a just and proper act? Again, I’m not sure – but given society’s right to regulate public behavior, it seems safe to say that it *might* be just and proper. Oumkheyr’s assertion that “It is very unfair that they are even considering this law” seems out of line. In fact, it seems to me to be yet one more attempt by a religious person to arbitrarily place some questions beyond the reach of rational discourse for self-serving reasons.

2) Everything else being equal, it seems to me that any rules and regulations that a society enforces with regard to dress ought to be applied fairly and evenly without regard to particular religious beliefs.

Would a ban on burqas constitute a targeted assault on Muslims? Not necessarily. If the rule is “A person’s face must be visible at all times for reasons of public safety and identification,” then a burqa ban would merely be one consequence of a rule that also bans many other things. As I understand it, many US states banned masks in the 1920s after KKK members took to wearing masks so that they could engage in their illegal activities while hiding their identities. Recently the banks in my area have banned hoodies and sunglasses so as to make it easier to identify robbers. The intent of these rules isn’t to discriminate against Muslims or members of any religion but to promote public safety.

A world of masked faces apparently would be an inherently less safe one. In a free, democratic society like ours or France’s, there seem to be few good reasons for cloaking our identify when out in public. The reasons Oumkheyr gives for wanting to cloak her face do not seem strong enough to me to justify overturning the general principle that people in public ought not to have their faces obscured. (Those reasons also seem pretty weak to me when used to avoid having one’s photo taken for a photo ID. Those reasons seem weak regardless of whether it happens to be Muslims, the Amish, or anyone else presenting them.)

3) Are there reasons besides public safety that might justify a ban? Perhaps. Some schools ban gang colors in an attempt to reduce tensions and conflict. Do burqas (and other religious symbols and dress) rise to the level of gang colors? Do they divide people unnecessarily? Do they create in-groups and cliques that make others feel excluded and inferior? If they do, does that justify a ban? If it does justify a ban, what else might be banned on similar grounds? Expensive clothes? Goth attire? When does justifiable regulation become state-mandated regimentation?

4) If the burqa offends others, is that in and of itself reason enough to ban it? I am inclined to say no. Yet many people seem to think that skimpy attire, low-riding pants, “offensive” t-shirts, flip-flops, and other “messy” or extremely informal dress ought to be banned, at least some of the time (such as in schools). If something constitutes too much of a distraction for others in a classroom, school administrators seem inclined to prohibit it for the good of others and the educational process. I don’t know of any school that allows its female students to go topless; should the other extreme be judged by a different standard? Why?

5) The burqa makes communication more difficult. That may not justify banning it, but it does seem to add to my dislike of it. Apparently we all have regions of our brains that have evolved to fixate on and recognize faces. As social animals, a lot of our brains are apparently devoted to trying to separate the living from the non-living, people from animals, friends from foes, and to trying to figure out what those friends and foes are thinking. Faces and facial expressions play a huge role. People (such as those with autism) who aren’t good at reading faces and figuring out what others are thinking are at a disadvantage and suffer as a result. The burqa serves as kind of an artificially imposed autism that disadvantages all of us – or so it seems to me. The fact that it is once again a religiously-inspired element of life that seeks to reduce knowledge and the free exchange of information further reduces my respect for religion (just as the religious origins/support for burqas make burqas naturally suspect in my eyes – it’s a real negative feedback loop).

6) Oumkheyr ended her defense of her decision to wear a burqa by saying “I obey the laws of God not the laws of man.” That rankles on so many levels, it makes it hard for me to see whatever good reasons there might be for her beliefs and actions. As Deve indicated in a note, those “laws of God” were written by men. In my estimation, this is yet one more example of the way theists use gOd the way a ventriloquist uses a dummy.

Setting that aside, even many of Oumkheyr’s fellow Muslims seem to disagree with her. “Yes, there ARE holy laws,” they seem to say, “but the need for women to wear the burqa is not one of them!”

And beneath those issues lies a more fundamental one: Claims like hers are what I call “value neutral” and can be used to justify virtually anything equally well. One person’s assertion that their understanding of gOd’s laws trumps everything else is a non-starter – an indefensible premise that would open the door to everyone in effect becoming a law unto themselves and doing whatever they wanted if we granted it the respect Oumkheyr apparently thinks we should.

7) But of course that’s not quite the premise Oumkheyr (or any other theist) would probably defend. A more accurate closing statement might have been “I obey the laws of the One True God and not the laws of man or the false laws of their false gods!”

There’s an element of special pleading inherent in all this – an element that often gets obscured whenever religious issues are debated. Islam, after all, isn’t about gOd in the abstract or the right of everyone to follow whatever deity or religion or secular philosophy they have decided is best – it’s about submission (the literal meaning of “Islam”) to Allah. Period. Freedom has very little to do with it. Oumkheyr’s attempts to defend her burqa-wearing on “freedom of religion” grounds consequently rings more than a little hollow. And it will continue to ring hollow until Muslims like her couple their arguments for personal respect with calls for predominantly Muslim countries to grant all their citizens the same sort of freedoms and respect she is claiming for herself. It seems to me that logical consistency demands that those who would defend burqas in France must also defend bikinis on the beaches of Dubai, Christian crucifixes in Saudi Arabia, Jewish yamakas in Mecca, pro-atheist t-shirts in the Gaza Strip, and much else besides. Unfortunately, I’ve rarely encountered a Muslim who embraces such consistency. Oumkheyr certainly doesn’t in her essay. Instead, that essay seems to me to boil down to one more long and loud demand for special rights and consideration from one particular theist whose respect for the rights of others seems questionable….

But perhaps I’m being too harsh. Perhaps my judgment has been colored too heavily by one too many stories about Sikhs demanding the right to wear their ceremonial daggers *everywhere* they go, and suicide bombers in Iraq who were able to slaughter many others because of their explosives-hiding burqas and/or the special consideration given Islamic females (and those posing as Islamic females), and the apparently endless stream of articles I’ve come across in which people who can’t defend a belief or action with logic and evidence play the religion card, then get all pissy when others don’t immediately bow down to them….

Ah, well, what can I say? I’m only human. I try to do the best I can.

If there’s a good reason for women to go around dressed up like beekeepers, I’m willing to consider it. If anyone can make convincingly the case that the right to wear such attire is more important than all the issues and objections that I’ve raised here, I’m prepared to revise my opinions accordingly.

All I can say at this point is that I’d probably vote to ban the burqa if I were a member of the French government today.

And if such a ban has the unintended effect of driving Oumkheyr out of the country (as she says in her essay that it would), well, that would seem to just provide me with more evidence that irrational religious beliefs motivate people to value and do some pretty silly things.