The US should Ban the Burqa from Planck's Constant

Katt Williams with a noose around his neck on the red carpet

Take the noose. It's just a rope knotted for use in hanging. By itself, there's nothing wrong with it. But suppose there was a religion that required their black congregants to wear it tightly around their necks; so tight that they could barely breathe. Suppose also that if they didn't wear it they would be privately and severely beaten.

Suppose also that this religion spread the lie that their black male members willingly, adoringly, proudly chose to wear the noose as a symbol of their love of ~~Allah~~ God. Suppose that there was no shortage of black members who cheerfully embraced the noose and giddily announced that they wore it of their own free will.

Suppose all these things - would we allow such a religion to so abuse, torture and humiliate its members? Even if those members denied they were being abused, tortured and humiliated? We would not. Any decent, sane person would find such religious conduct outrageous and immoral.

Are there black people stupid enough to wear a noose proudly? As we see in the photo above, we can always find idiots who are clueless as to the things they do, and I have no problem with allowing people to wear items that are symbols of humiliation and subjugation provided that they are not brainwashed members of a cult who do so under the force of their religion. Otherwise, it should be illegal.

That is why I would support a ban in this country on wearing a burqa in public.

Liesl Gerntholtz writing at the Huffington Post thinks a ban on the wearing of the burqa in public life would be a violation of the rights of these women:

Huffington Post, 1 Jul 2009, Beyond the Burqa: To Help Women, Leaders Should Dig Deeper than Religious Clothing
Violence against women is tolerated in the name of tradition all over the world. Women's oppression is universal. Those who want to help address this sorry state of affairs should start not by telling Muslim women how to dress, but by tackling the root causes of this oppression both at home and abroad: discrimination, lack of access to services, and unequal economic opportunities.

Ms Gerntholtz is quite wrong. If I see black men being hanged, I want the practice stopped - I don't want to tackle the root causes of this oppression. First, stop the abuse - later we can discuss the reason they are being abused.

However I do believe that a woman has the right to be abused and humiliated in private. She has the right to wear handcuffs and be tightly bound in ropes and spanked so hard she pees on the floor, if she so chooses. But if I saw her boyfriend doing so in public I would call the police and I would expect them to arrest him and to ignore any entreaties from the female that she enjoys being so beaten. No woman has the right to be abused, tortured or humiliated in public. We allow people to defecate in private but not otherwise because we as a society find it unseemly for our fellow citizens to publicly take a dump.

If it is true that Muslim women want to appear as slaves and love wearing symbols of oppression then they must do it in private. American children must not be allowed to see women being treated worse than animals (no Muslim would cover his camel on a hot day). It sets a bad example.