I’m from the US, so I grew up on a lot of talk about religious freedom (I know it’s just talk now, but it’s still colored my perspective) and these always rub me the wrong way. I grew up in an environment that is more prudish than the one I live in, and I’m proportionally more private than the people around me. I would be intensely uncomfortable if it were mandated that I wear a two piece bathing suit (edit: at the beach, not just around town), for example.

I know that coercion exists and some of the people wearing headscarves wish they could express themselves more freely and feel oppressed by them, but can’t practically oppose them unless there’s a law backing them up. I get why the law exists, but it feels so, so much worse to force someone to expose a part of themselves that they consider private than to force someone to cover something up that they don’t consider private.

It feels like the difference between a venue requiring long pants and a jacket and a venue doing public pat downs. Both can be uncomfortable, but one feels like a much more serious invasion of privacy.

Is there something I’m not considering here? I could definitely be overlooking something, especially since I’m in contact with a ton of immigrants from Muslim countries and have very little contact with their descendants, who are probably the group most likely to feel pressured to wear a scarf they don’t want to.

Edit: that said, I get that this one is for under 14s, which makes it a lot easier to stomach for me

Ah, yes, society is now a much better place. Fucking nationalists, man.