A completely ridiculous article by Anne Applebaum turned up in my RSS feed from Slate today (yes, we're going through a bit of a rough patch, but I know that Slate and I can get through this).
In it Applebaum actually tries to argue that Muslim women should remove their full-face veils in certain situations (such as when employed as teaching assistant for example). She argues for this by claiming that it is analagous to westerners covering up when entering a temple in ceratin countries.
However, these two situations differ in one crucial respect: there is no deep moral principle behind the decision of the Westerner to dress in a particular way that may be seen as offensive inside a temple, whereas, in most cases, there is a deep religious conviction behind a Muslim woman's decision to don a full-face veil. Thus, to ask a Muslim woman to remove her veil is offensive in a way that asking a Westerner to cover up when entering a temple is not.
"Removing a full-face veil at work is simply a matter of politeness." - Anne Applebaum
(via Slate)
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