Presentations before the Supreme Court continue.
Ol’ UD agrees with this position, of course; yet she’s certainly alive to the argument that it’s not the job of government to police and ban all visible forms of patriarchy.
Quebec however proposes nothing of the sort – it asks only that in public sector locations and among people with public sector, public facing jobs, the hijab (and other visible religious clothes/jewelry) be left at home or put back on when you’re no longer in the classroom or courtroom etc. When you are, in other words, acting as a representative of the government, you ought not be in overt conflict with the government’s official secularism, a form of secularism supported by strong majorities of Quebecers.
And yes – one crucial ground of civic secularism is human rights/human dignity. Whether France or Quebec, people have correctly perceived that – oh, take your pick – women can’t be priests, women must be hidden, women must be denied access to Torah learning, men thank God daily that He didn’t make them women… It’s not Quebec’s fault that much of Islam (Ultraorthodox Judaism ghettoizes itself so is perceived as less troublesome) makes a lot of noise about the offense to God that is woman. The Afghan Taliban seems able to justify caging its women by reference to religious texts.
So it’s understandable that a seriously secular state looking at ongoing brutal hijab enforcement by Iran’s theocracy etc etc would reasonably conclude that influential forms of religion represent a threat to the equality of men and women. The history of religious abuses of women has understandably sensitized secular states to certain overt religious behaviors within the boundaries of the state.