1)Stealing causes needless suffering and hardship on others, that is why it's banned. It doesn't need social conventions to back it up. And I'm not sure about Roma cultures, but in every other culture stealing is considered wrong. You can see it in infants, try to take away their toys or force them to share with somebody. They won't do it, it's a learnt behaviour. The idea of personal possession is innate and acultural, and for good reasons.
2)And I explained why those reasons are fear peddling. There is no need to see someone's face in public. If it's necessary for identity purposes, you can go ahead and ask, but it's not necessary for every activity. You don't get to see my face at the moment, but there is no danger or lack of security. No one has explained to me why it's necessary to be identifiable at all times.
3)Yes, all laws limit civil liberties, that is why they need to be thought of carefully and need to be minimal. You can't create a law for everything under the sun. Guns are banned because their only purpose to kill living things, and everyone has a right to live, so we don't allow it. A niqab worn out of choice hurts nobody else, it has nothing to do with the rest of society.
4)Speeding and littering, unlike wearing niqab, hurt other people and infringes on my (and other's) space. I'm okay with jailing people for that, but it's usually not necessary, they should just pay for the damage and hardships they caused. Niqab on the other hand, does not hurt you or me. Using violence against women who were not harming anyone is wrong.
5)
Then what's stopping someone from drawing the line at some other arbitrary point like Valls and other Socialists did? If you don't use reason to justify your points, then people will free to go further into unreasonable laws. You can drive 120 because that is what's deemed safe enough for you to stop in case an accident is approaching, anything faster is too fast for human reaction time. That is reasonable. Making a rule about having to see someone's face is entirely arbitrary.
I prefer more liberal drug laws. I already explained why we have speeding laws.
6)If a woman can't even go outside then how will she get help? How is she safer and freer than before?
We will never agree on this, and we're doing merryrounds, but I'd still like to react.
1) My example of stealing was maybe a bit to exagerated to bring home my point. But my point still stands, lots of laws are based on social conventions or to protect them.
2) Read the argument of the court. Belgium argued that in order to maintain social cohesivness, showing ones face is a necessity. It's a social convention, sure, but it's one the lawmakers felt at the time needed to be set in law. Niqabs were still a fringe phenomenon, but on the rise. I can't see in the head of the legislators, but I'm pretty sure one of their arguments too was to not normalise niqabs, as it is a symbol of female oppression. The ban is a way to avoid more women being forced to wear one. Again, as a society, we decided that it's an important thing to show your face when interacting, and as a society we didn't want to normalise the niqab. You might not agree with that, and that's your right, but our society agrees. Just like it agrees public nudity is not warranted. Just like it decided gun ownership isn't, etc.
And there are reasons to ban it. One is, like I said over and over again, the face is a very important part of identification in social interactions, and also a means of non-verbal communication. The other is we, as a society, don't want women being stripped of their features (by which I mean, that it's impossible to see who's who when you have different Niqab-wearing women together). How is that fear pandering?
But yes, there also is a security aspect to banning covering your face in public, in cases of crime.
3) No you can't. But when an issue is popping up, a law can be made to adress that. About the guns, you entirely pass by my point: the ban on guns affects people who are responsible gun owners and feel guns are a part of their identity, or make them feel more comfortable. But we banned them for reasons. The niqab is a tool of female oppression in many cases, and by banning it we also try to adress that. This might affect women who wear one out of their own free will as a side-effect. Look, someone posted an interview with a women defending female gential mutilation. It's not because she isn't opposed to it, we should condone it.
And a Niqab out of choice DOES affect society. For one, it shields your most important feature to other people, which affects the way how they can interact with you. That's where we draw the line. We have heavy freedom of religion, and freedom of expression of religion. But there are limits.
4) You still seem to imply that women are actively put in jail because of the Niqab, while we stressed time and time again that's only the ultimate punishment. I'm quite sure women aren't even fined at first, but warned. And even then, in the offcase it should come to court, I'm pretty sure court will try to establish why the woman wears it, if there is any abuse related, etc. (I've worked on a crime series about a Belgian district attorney, and saw a lot of court cases as research. It is eyeopening to what extent they, even for a little crime, look at the bigger picture...
5)Every democracy has checks and balances. This law was proposed, then it went to a comity, that comity drafted up the law after research and discussions, then (after the commity agreed upon the draft) it went to the floor of the parlaiment, where it was discussed again and put up to a vote. So there is a complete, democratically chosen parlaiment, who checks and decides the arbitrary line. And than there are the courts, which can nullify laws if they are deemed unconstitutional. And then there is the European level, where laws like these can be checked against the treaty on Human Rights.
This 'arbitrary line' passed all of those. This is not a case of someone just drawing a line. This was democracy and it's checks and balances at work, up to the absolute highest level...
6) I find it very hard to imagine women who want to find a way out, wil not go out of their way to decide it. You paint the picture as if an woman allowed to wear a niqab, who is forced by her husband and doesn't want to, will be able to find help, while someone who isn't allowed to go outside absolutely can't.
I do realize it is very difficult for women in general to get out of abusive relationships, and that for muslim women it might be even harder. But we do offer help to these women. We have safe houses, we have social workers trying to locate these kind of problems, organisations, etcetera.
I'm also not sure there is a known case in the six years this law is in effect where a women was forced inside because she couldn't wear one. But what this law does is make very clear a niqab is not something that is condoned in this society, and this is a message that goes out to the men who want to force their wives too. It's a law that says: we don't think this is normal, and we don't want this behaviour. This might as well have the effect that less women are forced to wear one in the future.
Because you banned her from going outside. Do you know what thread you're in?
Wow, seriously? This law doesn't ban anyone to go outside. This is some serious mental stretching going on.
