Scott Lemieux is blogging about Quebec's refusal to let Muslim women vote with their face covered:
- I don't believe that, at least on their face, Quebec's actions should be held to violate the guarantee of religious freedom in Section 2 a) of the Charter. Over the years I've become more convinced that Scalia's broadly criticized opinion in Oregon v. Smith was correct; unless a regulation is just a pretext for religious discrimination, fairly applied general regulations representing a legitimate state interest can burden the exercise of religion.
- Even if the Quebec government can do it, however, we need to ask whether it should. Absent a showing that facial covered was being used to a significant extent to commit voter fraud, I cannot agree that this regulation is remotely justifiable. The state should accommodate minority religions absent a good reason to do so.
- Although I certainly agree that "multiculturalism and tolerance should not serve as a pretext for denying gender equality," to think that this prohibition on ornamental choices advances gender equality in any significant way is silly. I certainly agree that "multiculturalism" cannot justify domestic violence, coerced genital mutilation, denying emergency contraception (although, oddly, that last form of multicultural exemption seems to get brought up a lot less when conservatives gin up these largely phony dilemmas), etc. But people are fooling themselves if they think that forcing Muslim women to vote with their faces uncovered does anything for gender equality. In cases where Muslim women in relatively egalitarian relationships with men are forced not to be covered, the regulation represents a diminution of women's freedom. In cases where women are coerced in some way to wear facial covering to symbolize their subordinate status, the gain to women's freedom of compelling them to remove their facial covering every few years to vote are trivial.
I don't even understand why this is a debate. A few years ago, when that woman in Florida wanted to take her driver's license photo with her face covered, I sided against her; the state has a compelling interest in knowing that the person who took out the license is the one driving the car, and if you can't uncover your face to take a picture, then I'm sorry, you can't drive a car.
(Question: my impression is that places like Saudi Arabia require women to have papers on them at all times to prove that they're not, say, in a car alone with a strange man. How do they handle this? Otherwise, why not just swap passports with your boyfriend's sister?)
But my understanding is that the prohibition is on having your face seen by men, not by having your face seen at all; and that the problem with the driver's license picture is that you don't know whether a male or female cop will pull you over. It seems very easy to deal with the practical side of this: provide a female and a private place to check the ids of those with religious objections.
Some of the energy behind this seems to have been from feminists who hoped to use this to deligitimize veiling. This strikes me as very, very strange. Disenfranchising women has not exactly proven a surefire way of liberating them in the past. The ability to cast one of several million votes seems unlikely to be a sufficiently powerful lure for either women or their husbands to relinquish the veil.
Nor do I think it's legitimate for the state to withhold rights in an effort to change behavior unrelated to the excercise of the right in question. The state can't refuse the right to vote to the unmarried, even if marriage is excellent for me and society, because the state doesn't have the power to tell me to get married.
Update Yes, obviously, that was a typo. It's now fixed.
Update II No, I didn't make another error about the topic of the article. The full text reads:
The Quebec government requires everyone to vote with their faces uncovered, even if they have religious reasons for not doing so. Elections Canada has issued a ruling permitting women to vote with their faces covered in federal byelections in Quebec, although the rule will still apply in provincial elections.
i.e. the government of Quebec is refusing to let women vote in provincial elections with their faces covered, whatever their reasons for doing so.
Thanks to everyone who made my Sunday evening so entertaining!
I agree completely. It's a question of reasonable accomodation. For the woman who wanted her drivers license, it seems clear to me that it wasn't reasonable; having the face covered totally undercuts the purpose of an identification card, because you can't use it to identify the person in question. But a voting booth? Why? You already vote in secret. It should be easy enough to establish the identity of the voter in question without violating the religious edict. We're not compelled to violate moral or legal rules to respect religion, but when we can do so fairly easily and simply, we should.
Could you, maybe, possibly, at least try to proofread and spellcheck your posts?
Jebus.
So Quebec is forcing Muslim women to cover their faces while voting. This is a new one on me, Megan. You want to go over that one again?
I am with Megan on this one!
When I first moved to London at a tender age - I was positively amazed to see ethnic clothing uniforms at big UK (franchise) chains such as Boots or even McDonald's.
Boots had male uniforms with turbans (in their company colors) and female uniforms for those who wanted their head to be covered (not the face in this case). How smart - they turned a challenge into an advantage? Turned from assimilation to integration in order to avoid separation.
I fell in love with California many years later. It was 2 weeks after 9/11 that I had to renew my driver's license. There was an old Arab couple at the station who did not speak English apart from some broken sentences - but they needed to get ID. Initially the couple seemed nervous, obviously not knowing what to expect from state officials during such emotional times. When they (and hence I) learned that California has the driver's test in Arabic as well we were all... speechless.
I hope that Quebec can find a solution without enforcing a certain dress code for the right to vote? I can see why they might have problems with hard-core nudists but that is another discussion?
PS: Besides English, the basic Class C written driver license exam in CA is also available in the following languages:
Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Cambodian, Chinese, Croatian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Persian/Farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog/Filipino, Thai, Tongan, Turkish, and Vietnamese.
Nor do I think it's legitimate for the state to withhold rights in an effort to change behavior unrelated to the excercise of the right in question.
But voting isn't a right. It's something we do because it allegedly produces a better government than any of the alternatives. No one is hurt by not being permitted to vote in the sense that he might be hurt by, e.g., being imprisoned without a trial.
Scott Lemieux is blogging about Quebec's refusal to let Muslim women vote with their face uncovered:
Are you on drugs?
Question: my impression is that places like Saudi Arabia require women to have papers on them at all times to prove that they're not, say, in a car alone with a strange man
Alone: by yourself. Not with anyone else.
"Strange man". If boyfriend or just friend, albeit not a family member, cannot be a "strange man".
Suggested rewrite: "...places like Saudi Arabia require women to have papers on them at all times to prove they are related to any man they happen to be with."
Note to Atlantic: For a small fee, I will attempt to rewrite McCardle's posts and render them in U.S. English.
Steve, this is cute and all, but if you've never heard the common English usage of the word "alone" to mean two people being together without anyone else, as in:
"Finally, we're alone!"
"I found her alone with a boy in the basement"
"I wanted to get you alone so we could talk"
. . . then you're probably not ready for copywriting duties.
Ya srsly, u never heard of Tommy James or Tiffany?
Question: my impression is that places like Saudi Arabia require women to have papers on them at all times to prove that they're not, say, in a car alone with a strange man. How do they handle this?
Good question, if only there were some way to look up things on the internet. Failing that maybe we could ask a journalist working for say one of the most prominent literary magazines in the western world? Any suggestions on how Megan might go about finding the answer to her question?
But voting isn't a right. It's something we do because it allegedly produces a better government than any of the alternatives. No one is hurt by not being permitted to vote in the sense that he might be hurt by, e.g., being imprisoned without a trial.
That's right. People who don't get to vote when they want to (line's too long, machines don't work, were in jail) should not get so uppity. Its a privilege, shared more widely than in years past, but with the disaster foisted on us by permissiveness and multiculturalism, maybe we should take it back.
Scott Lemieux is blogging about Quebec's refusal to let Muslim women vote with their face covered:
In Quebec they are only allowed one face.
Even her corrections are poorly written! Luv ya, Meg!
Question: my impression is that places like Saudi Arabia require women to have papers on them at all times to prove that they're not, say, in a car alone with a strange man. How do they handle this?
It is a mystery!
Freddie wrote: But a voting booth? Why? You already vote in secret. It should be easy enough to establish the identity of the voter in question without violating the religious edict. We're not compelled to violate moral or legal rules to respect religion, but when we can do so fairly easily and simply, we should.
That's reasonable, but I don't see how it applies here. Supposing I decide to only be seen in public in a full-body gorilla costume, and start a club of people who do likewise. For purposes of reliable identification in this or any context, who is to know that each of us is really the person each of us claims to be? We could commit voter fraud (and maybe identity theft and a few other nasty things besides) on an unprecedented scale in the name of the Gorilla Body Suit Club, and now the state's hands are tied because of our right to engage in this practice?
Seems to me that if I were to actually engage in such practice, I might well have the right to do so but I have automatically disenfranchised myself from any activity where reliable proof of identity is imperative (up to and including the use of credit cards, really). Similar to how a committed nudist has disenfrachised his or herself from many public activities -- not because of his or her right to engage in the activity in private and limited-access settings, but because public social interaction requires some minimum standards that all members of society can agree to tolerate.
One of those standards in the modern west is the ability to verify a person's identity based on cursory visual inspection. That doesn't mean that it's impossible to fake the appearance of another person, but in most cases there are only a limited number of identities someone can fake, and it usually requires some effort and acting talent. Conversely, a person in a gorilla suit or any of the more extreme Islamic facial/body coverings really could be anybody.
People who are gay disenfranchise themself from marriage by their choice as well.
public social interaction requires some minimum standards that all members of society can agree to tolerate.....One of those standards in the modern west is the ability to verify a person's identity based on cursory visual inspection.
No, you're wrong. completely wrong.
No one is identifying people based on cursory visual inspection. People are identified by inspection of a document they bear.
The inspection is intended to verify many things other than identity, including age, residence, and the possession of a non-expired document.
Those inspecting such documents visually compare the bearer to any number of qualifying elements of the document, including a photo, if present, or a signature.
This is NOT to identify people based on their visual appearance, but, rather to verify a person is who they say they are.
In no manner of law or practice are citizens obligated to make themselves visually identifiable while going about their business.
There's no obligation to refrain from wearing hats, sunglasses, hoods or masks in public. There's no obligation to refrain from changing one's hairstyle to one that doesn't match the photo in your documents.
Gary Ruppert wrote: People who are gay disenfranchise themself from marriage by their choice as well.
You clicked "Post" too soon. I eagerly await your follow-up where you explain your interest in the topic at hand, and intent in bringing that rhetorical construction to bear.
g wrote: In no manner of law or practice are citizens obligated to make themselves visually identifiable while going about their business. There's no obligation to refrain from wearing hats, sunglasses, hoods or masks in public. There's no obligation to refrain from changing one's hairstyle to one that doesn't match the photo in your documents.
In big-'L' Libertarian LaLa Land, maybe. But I was talking about the real world, specifically in the modern west, where the photo ID is a de facto standard method for confirming that a document and the person holding it are, in fact, reasonably congruous. So let's not be ridiculous and tell other people that they are "wrong, completely wrong" for stating the obvious.
Ok, sorry about the "wrong completely wrong" tone.
What you wrote perhaps mispoke your point, as well, or I read an intent you didn't mean.
But my point still stands: citizens are not obligated to make themselves visually identifiable while going about their business.
It's ONLY when entering into certain transactions, or performing certain tasks that people are obliged to confirm their identity, and even in those cases, consistency of appearance between the actual human being and a photo is only one of the confirming factors.
Even the credit card thing is not absolute. I can use my spouse's credit card. My son can use mine. I am not obligated to verify my identity when using a credit card online.
It's not illegal to have a false identity, or go about in disguise, either. It's only illegal to do certain things when pretending to be someone else.
That's right. People who don't get to vote when they want to (line's too long, machines don't work, were in jail) should not get so uppity. Its a privilege, shared more widely than in years past, but with the disaster foisted on us by permissiveness and multiculturalism, maybe we should take it back.
Uh, from whom, exactly? I'm thinking of the people who were traditionally denied voting rights in this country....
Conversely, a person in a gorilla suit or any of the more extreme Islamic facial/body coverings really could be anybody.
I don't know for certain, but I got the impression from reading Lemieux and clicking around a bit that the issue isn't one of properly identifying the person in the veil. It seems to be mainly a symbolic measure.
"I don't even understand why this is a debate."
Megan, if you just shortened that to "I don't understand," you could just cut and paste that for every single one of your posts.
Think of the time you could save! Think of an interesting, controversial subject, a creative post title, than post "I don't understand," and let your commentators educate you! Then you can "update" as you begin to slowly comprehend what the hell is going on.
(note to whoever reads these posts to check up on Megan's work - the blog traffic couldn't be worth the embarassment of having her work for you)
oop - just noticed a typo there.
Can I get a job at the Atlantic now, too?
Quebec's refusal? And this is after you've already made your correction?
Tell me, did you actually read Scott's article? Did you actually read your own first sentence, even after your error was pointed out?
You're a disgrace. "Hack" is too good a word for what you are.
tydanosaurus wrote: oop - just noticed a typo there. Can I get a job at the Atlantic now, too?
Why? They had to pay Ms. McArdle in order to obtain her contributions to this website, and here you've demonstrated willingness and capacity to perform for free.
Obviously, California is one of the most illegal-friendly place in America, for those who know all the little nooks and crannies of the state and how they subvert the system of justice here. The only place that has that good old North American Union embossed on their state licenses is North Carolina, although there are 3-4 more that are in the process of getting idone, at the behest of the oh, so truthful folks in our Republican administration.
get a job hippie
g wrote: But my point still stands: citizens are not obligated to make themselves visually identifiable while going about their business.
That's fair, but how many times can you get away with not showing a reasonably recognizable picture ID at any place of public service or heavily government-regulated private service when there is a risk of, and substantial incentive toward, fraud?
Legislation like this is more of an example of white male chauvinism rather than feminist liberation in itself. The UK government is also enacting similar campaigns along the lines that women are the frontlines against terrorism - forcing them to be free will solve all our problems.
The inherent assumption that all Muslim women REALLY want to be free Western women denies the agency of feminist piety movements which are gaining ground in the UK and some countries in the Middle East.
The choice between women hiding themselves from the excesses OF male desire and flouting themselves FOR male desire must seem like a false choice for many Muslim women.
i.e. the government of Quebec is refusing to let women vote in provincial elections with their faces covered, whatever their reasons for doing so.
Um, no. What's actually changed in Canada and is therefore "new"--hey, could that be why it's called "news"?--and what Scott was writing about is the fact that Quebec now permits voting in federal elections with your face covered.
But, I'm sure you see no difference there. It's not like you knew a damn thing about Canada or its voting procedures when you lazily and incompetently read and summarized another blogger's content and reproduced it in lieu of doing some work of your own.
Even now, on your SECOND "update",--which most people would call a "correction"-- you're still failing to acknowledge your errors and talk about the actual news from Quebec. Or maybe the explanation is that your reading comprehension really IS that bad all the time.
Is it? I think it is.
You're worse than a hack. You're a lazy hack. You have no shame.
Clearly, the standard by which to measure a state's committment to the law is what is embossed on its license plate.
That makes it way more simple.
Quebec now permits voting in federal elections with your face covered.
It wasn't Quebec's idea, it was Elections Canada, a federal body.
I'd recast that there sentence. I know someone who wouldn't.
Some of the energy behind this seems to have been from feminists who hoped to use this to deligitimize veiling. This strikes me as very, very strange.Disenfranchising women has not exactly proven a surefire way of liberating them in the past.
Women who wish to remain veiled are probably not reliable feminists.
Disenfranchising them might well increase the fraction of voters who are.
That said, I imagine this is mainly a case of people demonstrating their ideological correctness to each other.
"Legislation like this is more of an example of white male chauvinism rather than feminist liberation in itself. The UK government is also enacting similar campaigns along the lines that women are the frontlines against terrorism - forcing them to be free will solve all our problems."
Without entering into the whole distasteful debate, it's worth noting that the inherently higher standards that women are held to in terms of dress is inherently misogynistic. Imagine the outcry if heterosexual white males were told that they had to dress quite conservatively, not only covering their limbs but hiding their face and hair and the contours of their body, in order to be considered morally acceptable individuals.
Oh, let's be honest: the problem with veiling is that it is, as Jack Straw put it, a "visible sign of separation." A woman who dresses in this fashion is making an oppositional identity statement and expressing a resolve not to assimilate.
From the religious point of view Islam does not require face veils--it requires, at most, hair covering and reasonable modesty--where the standard for modesty is sensitive to the surrounding culture. The spectacular forms of Islamic dress that some Muslim women affect reflects the cultural norms of some middle eastern countries--quite often not the cultural norms of countries from which they, their parents or grandparents come.
Feminist arguments pro and con are a red herring. Veiling is offensive because it expresses a resolve not to assimilate and makes ethnicity--not religious commitment, but ETHNICITY--more salient and so harms members of traditionally Muslim ethnic groups who wish to assimilate in the same way that purely secular affirmations of ethnic identity harm other members of the ethnic groups with with they're associated.
Veiling and other expressions of ethnic identity are not self-regarding actions--these practices have consequences for others. If there are women walking around in burqas and jilbabs then if I am a a member of a traditionally Muslim ethnic group I will be associated with them and will be more likely to be viewed as Other--as a Muslim, an immigrant or descendent of immigrants rather than an olive-skinned Englishwoman or Frenchwoman. If there are underclass black youths doing black and wearing their pants halfway down their butts then if I am black I will be associated with them and viewed as an unassimilable Other.
So let's be honest: this issue is not freedom of religion, freedom of self-expression or some right to express one's individuality. It is ethnic self-affirmation and that is an act that his consequences for others.
"...doing black...."
Say what now?
It's like alterna-English world around here. I know I saw a Twilight Zone episode about this once.
Oh, let's be honest: the problem with veiling is that it is, as Jack Straw put it, a "visible sign of separation."
I say we leave this thread and go beat up punk rockers.
There are times when it is absolutely improper to veil, or to not be able to be identified by people, and not just the police. I say to heck with religious claims of having to cover hair and faces. Do you not remember that a number of al-Qaeda, and other terrorist men, have worn the burqua and veil to escape detection by blending in with other completely covered women.
Soon, it will become a requirement for people to not wear any heavy clothes at all, after a few dozen human homicide types blow themselves up with their bomb-vests. But the Muslims will still be protected as a poor, religious minority.
Blather...
gg, the NAU symbol is embossed on their 'driver's license,' not on the license plate.
But to make the connection symplistic so as to not make it too hard to understand...this is the first state that allowed illegal aliens to get valid, state driver's licenses. The NAU symbol of the North American continent that is hologramed into the material, is the trial balloon to see if the fairly-supine Tarheels will take affront to be associated with this Union. If not, full speed ahead with all of the other state groups that follow the heels of the Clinton-Bushes.
The NAU symbol of the North American continent that is hologramed into the material, is the trial balloon to see if the fairly-supine Tarheels will take affront to be associated with this Union.
What color are the UN black helicopters in your world?
This discussion is a little creepy because it's premised on US constitutional debates. Canada, for the record, is another country with a different constitutional culture and different underlying notions of the rights of the individual vs. the state and society. You may recall the Alberta farmer who was jailed for producing Nazi publications--unquestionably legal in the US, not legal at all in Canada. (Or Germany, by the way.) There are plenty of ways to run a liberal-democratic polity, and your way may not be to my liking, but the proper forum for those debates should be at the national level rather than at some nominally transnational level which turns out to be a US writ large.
The state must draw the line on religion with such nonsense as covering the face. I'm sure the law isn't only for Muslims. Nobody has a right to vote without identifying themselves. There is no reasonable excuse for any religion to have preferential treatment. The state has a right and a duty to ensure that you are the registered voter/person you say you are. Period.
For all those who see this as a privacy issue or a woman's rights issue consider the following.
The Muslim religion dictates that a father can order his 13yr-old daughter to marry his 45yr-old best friend; anywhere on Earth presumably. The 13yr old girl has no choice in the matter, no protection from child-rape or forced marriage. Period. That's Allah's word.
So why should the state be allowed to intervene, particularly if she never complains (which also isn't allowed)? Huh?
How about a shrouded woman getting on a airplane?
Does the state have a right to search her and insure her identity?
Religion is ridiculous to begin with and should be ignored 100% by the government especially when it comes to the law that governs everyone.
All that's happened here is that the incompetent Conservative Government tried to "clarify" the law (while doing a little fearmongering) and screwed up the wording. They wrote the clause requiring visual ID with a qualification along the lines of "or other form of identification..." which Elections Canada officials quite correctly interpreted as meaning "or other form of identification." As the head of EC pointed out it's not his job to rewrite the law here...
Fact is, there are maybe a couple of hundred women in this whole country who wear the full veil and many of them already carry photo ID in the form of passports and driver's licenses and have never had objections to unveiling for purposes of legal identification. They didn't ask for anything, the Muslim groups here in Canada have all said they have no problem with photo ID's, And no, this isn't being pushed by feminists, or lefties or anyone but the media and the paranoid right.
I can not believe that, this actually happening....
Totally agree that it is not right for letting "covered" women come for the voting.This is totally against any logic ....we will assume?? we will believe that the person on the ID is the same person as the person , the one that is covered!
What's gonna be next? They will ask to make a picture for ID documents with covered face as well?
This is insane!!!!!If the want follow their tradition, believes, why they don't follow it in there countries? if they came to developed-open countries they have to follow rules of those countries. Why if we want to go as travelers to their country we must cover our body- we have to follow their rules, and then they come to us they
want us to follow theirs?
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