If being actively queer was something which broke rules people had made for other good reasons, then it would be. I don't think discrimination against actively gay people is a good thing, and if other laws which weren't targeting gays specifically affected them anyway (although I can't think of a good example for all actively gay people, probably because I'm not gay), I think there'd be grounds for exceptions because being gay is not a choice, and, secondarily, even if it were, preventing people from expressing it will make them very unhappy.
With crash helmets and school uniforms, I can see good reasons for the rules, and the question then becomes what are reasonable grounds for exceptions. A rule that says "we like everyone to have a uniform appearance, so everyone here must have white skin" seems worse than "..., so no visible religious symbols" to me, in part because it does target something about a person they cannot change. With stuff that's a choice, however much it's tempting to say "'My Invisible Magic Friend says so' is not an argument", religion is closer to people's hearts than a general dress preference, and rule makers shouldn't be cruel for the sake of it. Hence the Sikhs and the crash helmets. But I think this argument from strong feelings is weaker than the one from stuff people cannot change. At some point rule-makers must consider which exceptions are reasonable, and how much to privilege religious feelings above politically libertarian ones, say.
In the French case, the rule makers explicitly wanted a secular system, for what at they consider good reasons, and made the rules to keep out expressions of Catholicism even at the expense of hurting Catholic feelings (and perhaps specifically to do so, making it a bit different from British cases). These rules now apply to Muslims too. I doubt banning hijabs has prevented terrorism (it seems more likely that France has avoided being seen as an ally of the USA, and that French intelligence services are models of cold blooded efficiency, from what I remember reading), but it has kept French public institutions overtly secular. I think if I ran France, I'd offer people who refused to keep the uniform rules a tax rebate, but that doesn't sound very socialist, so perhaps they wouldn't go for it.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-09 12:58 am (UTC)With crash helmets and school uniforms, I can see good reasons for the rules, and the question then becomes what are reasonable grounds for exceptions. A rule that says "we like everyone to have a uniform appearance, so everyone here must have white skin" seems worse than "..., so no visible religious symbols" to me, in part because it does target something about a person they cannot change. With stuff that's a choice, however much it's tempting to say "'My Invisible Magic Friend says so' is not an argument", religion is closer to people's hearts than a general dress preference, and rule makers shouldn't be cruel for the sake of it. Hence the Sikhs and the crash helmets. But I think this argument from strong feelings is weaker than the one from stuff people cannot change. At some point rule-makers must consider which exceptions are reasonable, and how much to privilege religious feelings above politically libertarian ones, say.
In the French case, the rule makers explicitly wanted a secular system, for what at they consider good reasons, and made the rules to keep out expressions of Catholicism even at the expense of hurting Catholic feelings (and perhaps specifically to do so, making it a bit different from British cases). These rules now apply to Muslims too. I doubt banning hijabs has prevented terrorism (it seems more likely that France has avoided being seen as an ally of the USA, and that French intelligence services are models of cold blooded efficiency, from what I remember reading), but it has kept French public institutions overtly secular. I think if I ran France, I'd offer people who refused to keep the uniform rules a tax rebate, but that doesn't sound very socialist, so perhaps they wouldn't go for it.