Posted: 01/30/17 15:16
by Dave Mindeman
The far right politics in Europe is causing more and more discriminatory policies to be considered. Take for example, Austria:
Austria is planning to ban the Muslim face veil in public places, the centrist coalition government said today as it announced a package of policies aimed at countering the growing appeal of the far-right opposition Freedom Party (FPO).
If a Muslim woman chooses to express her faith in this way, why should there be an allowance for governmental sanction?
OK, so because a lot of people seem to take some personal offense at this visible symbol of the Islamic faith, Austria feels compelled to make a national law to ban it?
That's crazy.
That would be like a Muslim dominated country demanding that a Christian never wear a cross of any kind on their person. I would assume that a regulation like this would be offensive to evangelicals, correct? In fact, I would say that they would consider this a persecution of their faith, right?
So why should this type of persecution be tolerated against other religions. The Muslim face veil is not some kind of assault. It is not going to affect anyone else in any way.
I would hope that saner, rational people in authority would not carry this through. But then, Trump like politics are becoming the norm and so I imagine that Austria will get suckered into this. These right wing parties are using fearmongering and frankly, nonsensical ideas, to gain electoral advantage. A false advantage based on false policies.
The world is not in a good place right now and if this continues we will be headed for an even darker place in the future.
The outward trappings of any religion should be off limits to political dialogue and especially to government regulation.
We still have kind of a fence between church and state, right? Could we get Trump to build his wall there?