Clifford Orwin has a blunt take on the whole niqab controversy in Québec:
Yes, Canada, some of those fellow citizens, being Muslim, dress so as to conceal more of themselves than do their sisters of other faiths. And yes, their veil bears a name so unfamiliar as to sound downright un-Canadian. They pay taxes, however, in the very same currency as we do, and are entitled to the very same services. They cannot be denied these for exercising their religious freedom.
Yes, their religious freedom. Forget about “multiculturalism”: The issue here is both older and more fundamental. It's the right of every resident of a liberal state to conduct herself as she thinks pleasing to God, on the sole condition that such conduct not violate the rights of others. And while wearing a niqab may send some observers into a high dudgeon, it impairs neither their civil interests nor their religious ones. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, whether their neighbour wears no niqab or three niqabs neither picks their pocket nor breaks their bones.
I agree with Orwin. However, the matter to me isn't about religion. It is about women's choices and their right that they have, as individuals, to do whatever they choose with their body, to dress however they choose even it means sending messages society is not comfortable with. I have never bought the whole sacredness of religion argument it isn't very convincing. I believe in individual rights for everybody even people who are still viewed as sexual objects or as people who either have to be invisible, transparent, hidden or just good to look at In short, the niqab/hijab/burka/burqa/veil is about equality and liberty
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