How did the story about a face covering end up in the Supreme Court?

I’m curious too, since that article said nothing about the Supreme Court.

It is subjugation of women, period.
If you do not really believe it, spend some time in the ME.
If have spent time in the ME and you don’t believe it, you weren’t paying attention.

Western liberal societies are not morally obligated to tolerate it.

But they do.

Because they are morally corrupt and chicken shit, and so they excuse their cowardice by proclaiming they want to be inclusive.

Which means they are hypocrites, IMHO.

God knows the Western world doesn’t subjugate women, at all.

@Darth_Algar

Think about that.
I bet you are only saying that so you will be accepted as a good little Jelly.

Don’t bet too much because, as with pretty much everything else you’ve ever posted to this forum, you’re dead wrong.

Serious conversations are necessary about the striking conflicts between Islam and modernity. Muslim fundamentalists have every justification for alarm at the erosion of “traditional values” suited to tribes wandering the desert.

The face and burka covers are cultural not religious.

It sounds like Canada ruled that in certain situations the face cannot be covered. I don’t know how it wound up in the courts specifically, but I for one agree. I’d say I personally take it one step farther and in most circumstances I don’t believe in covering ones face in public, especially indoors. I say indoors, because when it’s 20 below in MN a ski mask is probably reasonable.

I support restrictions and dress codes in public schools. Those rules are so there is a certain amount of conformity and modesty.

I think these types of laws can only help women. Much like when AIDS hit the scene and we finally put laws into place that dentists must wear gloves while touching your mouth (can you believe previously that was not a requirement?) putting laws about covering up a girls face or hair will take the burden off the family who wants to break free from the peer pressure within their community to conform, and help the young girls who don’t want to be different than their peers. I don’t really have a problem with covering ones hair, but it’s just an example of what might come up in a school uniform situation. I draw the analogy of the dentist, because at the time, some dentists worried patients might either be offended, or worry the dentist himself had AIDS or some other disease. It was ridiculous in my opinion, but that really was the dialogue at the time.

@cazzie: “The face and burka covers are cultural not religious.”

“O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.”
(Quran)

“And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.”
(Quran)

It says wear clothes. Cover your hair. The bible says it too. It doesn’t say wear a tent over yourself or obscure your face. It is interpretation. The fundies take it to an obscure level that becomes an infringement of the persons right to personhood and identity. Nothing new there. The Muslim women I work with from Turkey wear hijab when they are on their way to work on the bus but they don’t wear it indoors. The lady that cleans is from Somalia and she wears her traditional clothing as she works. Very pretty and colourful. It doesn’t cover her face. Many Muslims from several cultures wear different clothes. Christians from Ghana were different clothes from Christian women from Minnesota.

None of what I said above gives any religious group the right to force their dress code on another culture or use it for the oppression of people or as an excuse to break the law.

@cazzie An interpretation from their religion it appears. I had never seen those passages from the Quran before. Observant Jewish women cover their hair also. It’s only cultural in the sense that some groups or cultures interpret or enforce what is written differently. It doesn’t change that the religious people are basically mandated by their leaders or group to conform.

That line about women reducing their vision? That’s what I hate most about how these women are covered. Their peripheral vision seems impaired to me.

@JLeslie I think the translation is not reduce their own ability to see, but reduce how visible they are. They are not to be showy. Very Amish-like.

@josie “It is subjugation of women, period.”
How about Toddlers and Tiarra, and the like (if they’re still not banned like France has) Trump and what kinds of things he says about women, and Miss Universe (Trump presidential candidates)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/22/beauty-pageants-children--ban/2842431/

To correct myself it’s the “A Federal Court of Appeal” not the Supreme Court. I believe the government is appealing, so she can’t vote this time.

@cazzie I must have misinterpreted that. Thanks. So, would you agree the hijab is part of the religion, just the burqa isn’t?

One line particularly struck me in the HuffPo article posted in the original comment -

”“in Western societies, the niqab also is a symbol of distrust for fellow citizens and a statement of self-segregation.”

I’ve seen many others say that (or along similar lines), but I can’t help but wonder how many of these same people in turn will think nothing off some guy (or even, for that matter, some non-Muslim girl) sitting there or walking around with a hoodie pulled up, covering their head and obscuring their face, maybe with a pair of sunglasses or a ballcap pulled down obscuring the eyes, and a pair of headphones/earbuds covering their ears. I’ve certainly done this sort of thing plenty myself. I wonder how many folks took it was a statement of distrust or self-segregation? (Well I guess it is self-segregation, at least speaking for myself, I tend to do that sort of thing when I just want to be left alone.)

With the disaster I deal with trying to coif my hair, being in a culture that covers hair would make my life easier.

I think the idea to cover up modestly is the religious part. How it is carried out is their culture.

^ Sure. I think we agree here. I just found the explicit split between “religion” and “culture” strange. Religion is a cultural phenomenon that is both created by and informs a culture.

But how the religion is observed is separate.

^ Again, I have no disagreement with that statement.

Thanks all.

Edited: (@cazzie‘s quoran quote) “And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment.”
Did the translator mean “stomp their feet”?

stamp and stomp are very similar in translation, so I would say so.