Whats your opinion?

Are they an instrument for oppression of women or are they a part of the islamic faith?

Whats your opinions on the French governments moves to ban wearing the burqa in public?

Personally I'm split on the issue, the liberal in me thinks they're fairly terrible things that allow the most conservative facets of Islam to continue to have females treated as lower forms of human than males, however on the other hand the libertarian in me believes in the freedom to practice religion, and burqas are a part of some forms of Islam.

The way I see, religious implement or not, it should be the person's choice on whether or not they want to wear it.

If they ban them, they should ban all headwear, period. Otherwise they're just being intolerant.

My apologies, I was under the impression that a burqa was only a head garment.

However, my statement still stands, if a person wants to wear one, they should be able to, regardless of other people's opinions.

Well, my qualm is that yes, here in America, it's all about freedom of religion, but when that religion stomps all over one's basic God given rights as underlined in the constitution, then that part of the religion should be abolished and illegal. However, if one consents to being treated as a lesser, then they have the freedom to do so.

The problem lies in the following point as far as I can tell.

There is no denying that large portions of the Islamic world (though by no means all of it) allow and indeed support the broad suppression of women's rights, and that the burqa is a part of that suppression. There is also no doubting that some member's of the Islamic community attempt to bring this suppression to the West when them immigrate.

However, the tricky part comes when we try to allow for arguments along the lines of "it's a woman's choice." This is because so many women are forced (directly or indirectly) to wear the burqa and it is the state's responsibility to prevent this. But there are always those women who will claim it is their choice. Among this group, there is a two sections. Those who have chosen too wear it voluntarily, and those who's family and cultural life will not allow them to admit they have been pressured.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."  

Very much akin to this I believe that one's  freedoms of religion and the like end where another person's freedoms begin.  This applies both to men forcing women to wear these things and to groups wishing to ban them.

But how on earth do you seperate the two?

Easy, they are Americans first, Islamist second. The constitution is absolute, Islam is not. 

1.) What on earth does that have to do with my post? I was asking how do you seperate the freedom of religion from the oppression of women, its a difficult situation and seemingly has nothing to do with your post.

2.) The constitution isn't absolute. Absolute implies universality, which the constitution lacks (as it applies to the USA only) and it also implies immutability, which the constitution lacks as it can be amended.

3.) This topic never even specified America. The only example actually used was France which is where this is a current event.

So yeah, your post confuses me.

The dilemma is that, like with Christianity most muslims follow their faith the way they feel it pleases God-Allah. Due to my work I've spoken to several followers of Islam and most wear scarfs or Burqa's because they believe it's part of following their religion. This also accounted for single women by the way who's husband could not interfere. The same goes for muslim-girls who didn't even wear a headscarf. They believe that religion is what you practice in your head and your heart and nothing else.

I think that there is only a minority that is forced to wear a burqa by someone else.