Catholics should oppose ban on Muslim veils

IrishCentral.com ^ | 7.13.10 | Megan Finnegan

[noozguy1]

Islam is not the only religion that, when practiced in its orthodoxy, encourages and sometimes requires extreme modesty of its women. Hello, nun habits? Parents force their children to wear Catholic school uniforms. Conservative Christians wear long skirts and even higher necklines. Orthodox Jewish women don't show any skin aside from the ankles, wrists and neck, no matter the weather. Not all Muslim women wear a full burqa; they wear variations of head coverings dictated by their particular sect of Islam and their regional and cultural heritage. So we can point them out and decry the practice as barbaric, but you know what they say about those who throw stones.

[BenKenobi]

Idiot journalist would love to ban nuns outright.

When nuns are permitted to walk freely in Mecca, than Muslims should be permitted to do the same here.

[Amberdawn]

Ditto.

[steadfastconservative]

The Vatican has opposed this kind of ban, for the somewhat self-serving but still valid reason that if majority Christian countries don't respect Muslim minorities' right to practice their religion, Christians in majority Muslim countries could see their own rights taken away.

The problem, of course, is that Christians in Muslim countries are not free now to practice their religion. They don't have rights. They are dhimmis whose right to practice their own religion or even to exist at all is completely dependent upon the whims of the Muslim majority.

I hate to disagree with the Vatican here but regardless of whether or not France passes this law against Muslim women wearing veils in public, Christians in Muslim countries will continue to be persecuted.

One can make the argument that this law violates the separation of church and state but I don't think one can argue that not passing this law will somehow protect and bolster the rights of Christians in Muslim countries.