Why is banning a rag of oppression racist? At one time it was culturally acceptable to knock your wife around. Should we revert back to those ways? Leave women to walk ten feet behind us? Maybe give em a good smack when they get out of line?
I guess your only allowed to stand up for human rights when your liberal.
I'll answer that. What's wrong here is that it isn't always a "rag of oppression." Some women voluntarily take hijab or niqab, and maybe even burqa.
I've heard three reasons for banning niqab:
1. Security and identity concerns.
2. Alleged oppression.
3. Those blessed few who just flat-out admit they're bigots (even though they still cloak it in BS like "Old Stock Canadians").
OK, here's the responses, based on the admittedly American concept that, in order to ban something, the government must show that it has a "compelling government interest" and that the proposed ban is the least restrictive way to meet that interest.
Here we go. . .
1. Still waiting for any evidence that niqab-clad people are a significant security threat. By "evidence," I mean more than five anecdotes (two of them from outside Canada). Unless you've got a real, significant problem, you don't have a "compelling government interest."
2. Canada is a free society. If a woman who feels oppressed by the niqab wants to shed it, she can do so. She can leave her family and "community" and be in Canadian society. She'll get a heck of a lot more support than she would in the States. Funny how the same conservatives who are all about "standing on your own two feet" are suddenly all concerned about taking government action to "protect" women who may or may not be oppressed.
3. Absolutely. Go for it. Just have the balls to say that you're a bigot, and quit trying to hide behind bullsh*t "security concerns," or fer****'ssake pretending to give a damn about women's oppression.