The Christian Science Monitor editorial board – in a piece yesterday – suggests that the proposed French ban on women wearing a burqa in public is in the same spirit with which the Iranian government required women to wear head covering in public. Both, they argue, are denying women the right to make their own choices of personal religious expression.
The fact that certain publics in both countries are not happy with dictates on religious dress – dictates that have opposite aims – says quite simply that government has no business deciding what adults should wear.
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The fears in France and Iran can't be swept under a rug, but neither can they be papered over with a ban. Banning something as individually sensitive as religious garb leaves the "banees" feeling repressed – look at Turkey (unhappiness over a constitutional ban on the head scarf in public institutions) or at Saudi Arabia (unhappiness over women's restrictive dress and other rules).
