Man punches nurse for removing wife's burqa during c-section

[Ms. Toad]

117. You are missing the starting point -

which is that your entire argument has been based on insisting that it is not a religious practice. You don't get to decide what is a religious practice for someone else. You can accept or reject the doctrines of your own religion as culturally based, but you don't get to decide that for someone else with respect to their religion.

I'm not going to debate the rightness of laws relating to religious garb with someone who can't move past insisting that they have the right to decide what is or is not religious for someone else - that is just such a disrespectful position. It is sort of like a man trying to tell a woman how she experiences the world isn't really how she experiences it. I'm not going there.

When you can acknowledge, respectfully (e.g. without the derisive quotes) that we are talking about, for some people, a practice that they believe is part of their religion, then we have a starting place for the next discussion - about whether we (or France) have the legal or moral right to make laws targeting specific religious practices.

Respectful treatment of native peoples, including aboriginal people, is an entirely different issue. Most countries have quite a pitiful record on that score. I haven't responded to your challenges on that matter because (1) it is a different issue because what has typically happened is not so much banning native dress as stealing the children from aboriginal (or native) communities and anglicizing them so that they no longer even know what native dress is and (2) it is primarily a cultural issue (at least I have not heard native peoples raise concerns about dress in a religious context) and (3) I find your references to aboriginal people troubling - bordering on disrespectful - and I not going to engage in chasing multiple religious/cultural/ethnic stereotypes all over the place.