Current mood:	angry
Entry tags:	rants

Veils, Crosses & a Lot of Hot Air
I would like to live in a society where logical judgements reach without recourse to religious texts were given the same respect as those based on religious requirement.

In reality, I couldn't care less whether or not someone covers their hair or wears a cross and I'm not going to fight for my equivalent right to wear a hat or particular jewellery at work. I understand the reasons that we make allowances for religious beliefs and try to accommodate them, though I may not understand those particular beliefs myself.

Nonetheless, in my ideal world, my desire to wear a hat all the times because I choose to - for example - would be given the same weight as someone else's insistence on wearing religious garb.

It's a bizarre society in my view where a request that young people not wear hooded tops because they are 'threatening' and 'obscure the face' is seen as reasonable, whereas a request that someone remove a garment that covers most of their identifying features is seen as intolerant.

I can now understand how France came to the position it did, though it would not be my own position.

I do not wish to live in a society which says 'same rules for everyone except the religious'. I do not wish to live in a society which tiptoes around making exceptions and concessions based only upon religious belief, but will not make exceptions for other kinds of deeply held conviction. Such a society is one where I as an atheist will undoubtedly be expected to be understanding of such beliefs without reciprocity. That, I find grossly unfair.

Right now, I am becoming enraged with this increasingly nonsensical and thin-skinned debate.