I’m all for letting people wear whatever they want. What is the harm?

Here in Canada I’ve seen police officers wearing turbans. Works for me. Nude beaches? Sure thing. I’ve seen people in my neighborhood wearing Saudi-style niqabs and Afghan-style burqas.

Who am I to tell people what they should or shouldn’t wear? How could it be my business?

I’m also for people burning the Qur’an if they so please. Or the bible, or the rainbow flag, or the national flag if that’s how they want to protest. Ideas are there to be challenged.

I draw the line at threatening or harming people.

France is a secularist Republic. Freedom of religion is guaranteed but every religious sign is banned in the public space.

Every sign being banned in public? So what about all the crosses on the churches, or the ringing of their bells? What about people wearing crosses and nunns wearing the traditional dress? What about the easter processions in some places?

Sorry, but claiming that this would be in line with a secular policy doesnt work. It is target against muslims and muslims specifically without any actual bearing on secularism

These laws have been made to kick of the priest out of the school. If you’re a nun or a priest and attend school you have to wear civil clothe.

I am fine saying that these laws are over used against Muslim,but religious signs are banned in school and for government employee

While i support it for government employees in schools or other jobs with the public, i think we also need to look at the role of the attire. Priests and Nunns wear specific attire to their religious role.

It is not day to day clothing for normal people. for the Abbaya, or we had the same discussion in Germany for Hijab or any scarf around the head i always found it absurd since my areligious grandmother wore a scarf covering her head all the time and she preffered clothing that weren’t emphasizing her body shape. For day to day clothing or accessoires it becomes muddled quickly. is the cross on the wristlet a sign of religious affiliation, or just looking cute? Are the semi-moon earrings only worn by muslims, or does Anna-Sophia just like how it emphasizes her face? What about Marcs metal-band shirt with a cross on it? The only surefire way to “solve” it, would be to define a mandatory school uniform.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed but every religious sign is banned in the public space.

No it’s not! Thousands of people walk around with religious symbols and garnments in public all the time in France.

Secularism is enforced in government offices and employed people.

I understand that’s how things are, but I don’t think that is how they should be. And while I’m an atheist, I also understand many people aren’t. Why force my irreligiosity on them?

So while students should not be indoctrinated on any particular religion in school, I don’t see the harm in letting both teachers and students wear whatever they like, including religious symbols.

In fact, it would be great if we taught all students the basics of multiple world religions in school and let people of different faiths talk to each other about what is important to them.

I understand that’s how things are, but I don’t think that is how they should be.

Don’t take that guy just at his word. France does force secularism on their government buildings and workers, including teachers. But public wearing of religious symbols or garnment is perfectly fine. They recently banned face covering, with the obvious target of Muslim women wearing burqa or niqabs, but everything else is perfectly legal to wear in public.

I can see where you are coming from. How can we forbid clothing if the goal is to not dictate what to wear?

But consider that in a community, be that at school or in the neighborhood, classmates and neighbors can uphold unregulated, religious rules. Is it free choice of clothing if the law doesn’t forbid anything, but only girls with (insert appropriate clothing) are allowed to join in the play? And there is plenty precedent of religion that causes precisely such group behavior.

There is plenty of precedent of non-religious informal rules around clothing. E.g. men wearing skirts, dresses, or soft “feminine” colors. Do those informal rules bother you as well? Should we change the law accordingly, or are we okay with informal norms of conduct in that case?

In general, yes I do think that we should get rid of such informal rules. And I would appreciate a law that e.g. ensures an employer can not discriminate against men wearing dresses or skirts. For what it’s worth, there have been protest by bus drivers, who are not allowed to wear shorts in the summer, who showed up in skirts on a hot day.

If we change the garment from abayas to pants it would be “to ban male students from wearing pants in school”, meaning they’d be forced to wear skirts or dresses. But two points make this different from the OP:

Since this is not linked to religion it has a slightly different spin. I can’t put it into words that well, but a guy choosing to wear a skirt is just that, a clothing choice. But Islam is pretty explicit that women should cover themselves. So if a guy goes against the informal law people would make fun of him. If an Islam woman wears short clothes she is not only made fun of, but can also get in trouble with her entire community.
While dresses/skirts are almost exclusively worn by women, pants are worn by men and women. So a guy wearing pants is not the outlier, he is wearing the gender neutral clothing. If abayas are also worn by a significant fraction of male students in France I would heavily oppose the proposed ban, but I found nothing that would indicate such a practice.

Well if that really were the fears of people proposing such bans, then there would be a lot of better ways to achieve this. At the very least they would try to support such bans with flanking policies such as better infrastructure to support such women who are oppressed in a religious ways as for example better integration courses and public information.

And for some reason it’s always only about Muslim women! Other religions which can also coerce or force family members to follow a certain dress code, not a single word about them.

I really like this stance. Understanding other people is absolutely important. You don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to understand them and see them as people.

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