Burqa and Banks

[craigwatanabe]

France wants to ban women from wearing Burqas in public. Obviously a threat to their nationalism. Upon reading this an interesting thought came to mind...what if someone wearing a Burqa walks into a bank here in the US?

Because it is part of their religious right to wear Burqas can they be denied entry into a bank which prohibits wearing anything that hides the face?

How do we address this? Refusal to allow women to wear these veils constitues religious discrimination according to our own US Constitution.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Burqa and Banks

France wants to ban women from wearing Burqas in public. Obviously a threat to their nationalism. Upon reading this an interesting thought came to mind...what if someone wearing a Burqa walks into a bank here in the US?

Because it is part of their religious right to wear Burqas can they be denied entry into a bank which prohibits wearing anything that hides the face?

How do we address this? Refusal to allow women to wear these veils constitues religious discrimination according to our own US Constitution.

Is the face veil a religious practice among Muslims? Or is it, in fact, a cultural practice? That's two seperate things, Craig.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa

Although cultural and not of Islamic teachings, face covering veils have become linked to Islam and its followers.

http://islam.suite101.com/article.cf...har_university

The face veil, or niqab, predates Islam as as an Arab tradition and not a religious convention.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...our-burka.aspx

Defenders of the burka contend that the wearing of a face-mask by Muslim women is protected by our Charter’s right to religious freedom. But such arguments are premised on the myth that a face-mask for women is a necessary part of religiously prescribed Islamic attire.

There is no requirement in Islam for Muslim women to cover their face. Rather, the practice reflects a mode of male control over women. Its association with Islam originates in Saudi Arabia, which seeks to export the practice of veiling — along with other elements of its extremist Wahhabist brand of Islam.

If readers have any doubt about this issue, they should take a look at the holiest place for Muslims — the grand mosque in Mecca. For over 1,400 years, Muslim men and women have prayed in what we believe is the House of God. And for all these centuries, female visitors have been explicitly prohibited from covering their faces.

Well, better take the "religious freedom" argument for face-covering back to the drawing board.