No business in the bedrooms of the nations, but in the clothes closets?

According to the reliable Pew Research Center - majorities in France (82%) Germany (71%), Britain (62%) and Spain (59%) support banning the full Muslim veil (covers everything but the eyes) in public. France's Parliament is due to vote on the issue on July 13th.

In contrast, most Americans would oppose such a measure; 65% say they would disapprove of a ban on Muslim women wearing full veils in public compared with 28% who say they would approve.

This stark difference of opinions reflects the difference between EU style Postmodern Secularism and American Romantic Secularism. In Postmodern Secular countries (EU, Canada and the UN), human rights legislation encourages the state to intervene into the private sphere to counter religious activities merely because they are not consistent with a "secular" values, not on the basis that someone is being harmed.

No doubt there are Muslim woman who surely would rather not wear the full veil (burqa) given the choice in isolation but the reality is that we are social creatures that do best when we find the right balance between asserting our individuality and feeling like we belong. Making something illegal forces a social change within the Muslim community but not necessarily for the better.

The question for the French legislature is whether this balance between individuality and belonging is best found individually, socially or through the legal system. There is also a significant number of young Muslim women who are choosing to wear both the hijab and full burqa, even when their parents do not require or even approve of it.


By making such a law and removing the choice, France approaches the heavy handed Rational Secularist constitutions adopted by the former Soviet Union and Turkey, not surprising given their common time frame (1905-1928).

It's interesting how quickly some abandon the secular notion that the state had no business in the bedrooms of the nation, when the gender and religion changed. No business in the bedrooms of the nation, but business in the clothes closets and the mosques?

The United States developed their secular constitution during the Romantic era of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1776) which is why I called it Romantic Secularism. In America the highest political value is to ensure that freedom of beliefs and conscience are entirely between an individual and their creator - whether atheistic or religious. It limits state intervention into the private lives of individuals to where there is evidence of someone suffering harm, or the high probability that someone will be harmed. It was on this basis that the crime of sodomy was overturned - because there was no evidence of harm or coercion.

By distinguishing Romantic Secularism from Postmodern Secularism, the debate becomes one of different types of secularism, not theocracies (as promoted by the Taliban and medieval Catholic Church) versus secularism or perpetuating the fale dichotomy of reason versus religion that the "wall of separation" has created.

My main objective in making this distinction is that Postmodern Secularism is on a collision course with monotheistic beleivers. The monotheistic religions had no problem making the political compromises required of Romantic Secularism, but they do with the compromises required of Postmodern Secularism.

Understanding secularism as a wall between reason and religion puts the religious right at a significant disadvantage misstating their concerns from the beginning as irrational; when I believe that their real concern is that religion is still the most effective social institution for promoting individual integrity and accountability.

As a former policy analyst that worked on developing the two biggest pieces of corporate accountability legislation - the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley Act and the 2005 Basel II Capital Framework for international banks - both of which failed miserably - the only way to prevent fraud is with individuals who have a higher allegiance to telling the truth than to making money. Too much regulation just buries the honest in paperwork and makes it even harder to have a higher allegiance to the system over your own financial well-being.

In countries with Postmodern Secular Constitutions, the objective is to celebrate individual diversity, eradicating any groups that hold concepts of morality that work on a group level. Unfortunately, this moral framework discourages the very behaviour necessary to prevent fraudulent, or grossly negligent companies from taking excessive risks with our common assets.

As a Canadian I'm with the Americans - keep the government out of the churches, mosques, and syngogues and get them back to the much harder business of protecting our economies and environments.

I hope you consider supporting the religious right with their constitutional concerns because I am certain that the majority will abandon the libertarians in their quest to live without any state restrictions on their unbridled greed - if they believe that their religous values are protected from state intervention.