This week I want to talk about religious liberty. The proposed mosque at Ground Zero in New York City is capturing a lot of attention these days. The discussion is testing the meaning of religious liberty. A related, but even tougher, debate regards the wearing of hijab, the religious coverings worn by orthodox Muslim women.
All throughout Europe, parliaments are banning the wearing of hijab, whether simple head scarves or more traditional burqas that leave only a woman’s eyes exposed to the public. Even in the United States, these religious coverings are being addressed in our courts of law. Just what are the bounds of religious liberty compared to workplace safety or culture?
On a recent trip, while at the airport, I picked up a copy of the conservative magazine, National Review. I read an article by a free lance journalist working out of Turkey. This woman, I can only presume to be a conservative, writes rather convincingly that it’s time that hijab be banned in the United States, or at least severely criticized and ostracized.
She recognizes the inherent conflict of her position: religious liberty is sacred in America and yet she correctly recognizes that no right is absolute in America – you have a right to worship Satan if you’d like but that right stops when a satanic ritual leads to sacrificing humans or animals.
The journalist argues that hijab, especially the burqa, has become an evil practice that allows Muslim men to commit all sorts of atrocities against Muslim women – in other words, the hijab is THE symbol of modern slavery in an era of Taliban Muslims. She writes that Muslim men immediately objectify any Muslim woman not wearing head coverings as whores which, in that world, permissions Muslim men to rape and even murder women.
She quotes one Muslim cleric, standing before his congregation in Australia, and referring to a recent woman who was raped, as saying, “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside…without cover, and the cats come to eat it…whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”
The female journalist writes, “While it is true that some women adopt the veil voluntarily, it is also true that most veiling is forced. It is nearly impossible for the state to ascertain who is veiled by choice and who has been coerced…Our responsibility to protect these women from coercion is greater than our responsibility to protect the freedom of those who choose to veil…Why? Because this is our culture, and in our culture, we do not veil. We do not veil because we do not believe that God demands this of women or even desires it; nor do we believe that veiled women are whores, nor do we believe they deserve social censure, harassment, or rape.”
She concludes her article with these words, “Banning the burqa is without doubt a terrible assault on the ideal of religious liberty. It is a sign of a desperate society. No one wishes for things to have come so far that it is necessary. But they have, and it is.”
She makes a good argument, in my estimation. So why is it that I’m reluctant to draw the same conclusion and endorse an idea that so flagrantly restricts religious liberty?
Maybe it’s because I’m a Mormon and appreciate its value. Maybe it’s because I’m a conservative and am very reluctant to give up any liberty that so defines the very nature of a free and ordered society. I’m not sure.
I do realize that no right is absolute. I can see the logical restrictions that can justifiably be imposed in workplace settings. So perhaps my reluctance is because the whole burqa thing is so foreign to my world. For instance, I get how repugnant the wearing of a white sheet can be during a Klan rally or even Nazi paraphernalia. But Muslim customs are still very foreign to me.
Perhaps the lesson for me and others is that we better get educated, and fast. We are Americans, and that means something. At the very least, it means we protect all human beings who live among us as human beings, not as chattel, not as objects.
I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.
