it sounds good to pass laws that expand freedom, but this law doesn't expand freedom, it takes it away.
you have the president of France saying that there is something wrong with women who choose to cover. He didn't say there is something wrong with coercing them. We could all agree on that, and even on laws that punish people for coercing others. Instead, you would become the coercers and the sanctimonious judges of other people's morality.
There is something wrong with a secularism that feels the need for coercion. It violates one of the most basic principles of Enlightenment thinking, which is that there should be no laws made respecting an establishment of religion. That means that the state should neither support or oppose the exercise of religion, including in matters of dress.
That means that the state should neither support or oppose the exercise of religion,
As a mental exercise, that's fine and can help clarify unexamined assumptions.
But none of it is applicable here. We aren't talking about public urination or human sacrifice or public nudity.
The rights of a supposedly free people are being threatened so that there might be some hypothetical gain for a subcategory of the people being impacted.
That hypothetical gain already exists and can be strengthened without bans on dress.
My advice would be to keep the state from exerting any power over people that isn't absolutely necessary. And guard that jealously.
My advice would be to keep the state from exerting any power over people that isn't absolutely necessary
As for polygamy, it's a legacy of biblical injunctions that doubles as good deal for women and their empowerment. It might not be strictly necessary, but it has its purposes.
Precisely. Whether you agree with its justification or not, public nudity is outlawed for a specific reason: to "protect" the public from so-called "indecency". Clearly that same reason does not apply to the wearing of burqas. So the issue of public nudity is really not relevant here.
What is relevant is finding a reason that justifies prohibiting the wearing of burqas. So far at least three have been brought up, with varying levels of explicitness:
Still, somehow I feel there are indecency criteria or an indecency threshold that indecent exposure does satisfy but burqas do not. I have to think about it more, but I believe that it has something to do with the intent of the behavior (or lack thereof). If I understand illegal public nudity correctly, it must involve an intention to shock, offend, titillate or "upset" others in some way. In other words, it involves a form of psychological aggression. I think there is a key difference with burqas there: while some people may wear burqas in order to offend, shock, upset, etc., I believe that for the vast majority, that is far from the case. People may be disturbed at the sight of burqas, but that is normally not the intention of the wearer. Wearing a burqa, I daresay, is not a form of psychological aggression. And for this reason, even if some people may find it "indecent", that indecency is in their (the viewers') head, not in the intent of the burqa-wearer, and so it is not a form indecency that should be made punishable by the law. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
It speaks volumes about the contempt and domination in which those women are held by their own community. Nudity, in contrast, does not diminish anyone, only the social stigma associated to it would make it so. That the indecency be not the intention of the Burqa-wearer only makes it worse: it is the intention of the community that forces them to become Burqa-wearer.
And it is not about religion -unless we are talking about a new religion. Islam was all over the world with not a Burqa in sight apart from Afghanistan until very recently.
It is, however, very much about the subjugation of women. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
Unfortunately, I must deny your request to be taken seriously. My hands are tied, you understand, but without sufficient corroboration by other parties, it is very difficult. There are individuals, you see, highly unscrupulous individuals... and you will laugh at this: they pretend to have a religion! I know, I know, how could anyone believe them? Ha, ha. They are of course nothing like you, but you see, your temporary... shall we say lack of documentation... puts you, regrettably, in their company. It happens to the best of us, I could tell you stories... but I digress.
Of course, my door is always open should you come upon a reliable set of references, and I have little doubt that your present predicament cannot last. In my experience, leaders of idiosyncratic religions often pass through a period of tribulation and testing, it's in the nature of the thing, and is usually not fatal. (Well, I say it isn't fatal, but how would I know about the fatal cases, I ask you? Ha, ha.)
I trust therefore that I shall see you soon, with all the paperwork in order, and together we shall be able to put this little contretemps behind us once and for all, with all the contempt it so richly deserves. My secretary will be happy to make an appointment for you. -- $E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$
the state should neither support or oppose the exercise of religion, including in matters of dress
How do you square this with
BooMan:
the Mormons abandoned polygamy as a condition of Utah becoming a state
Is there not American legislation against polygamy? Didn't Utah becoming a state entail the integration of its inhabitants into the sphere of the rule of American law?
afew:
Didn't Utah becoming a state entail the integration of its inhabitants into the sphere of the rule of American law?
