Veil, school and dicks.

France is about to ban Moslem veils and other religious symbols in schools. Frankly, I don't see why it surprises so many now: the matter has been under discussion for 15 years or so.

I think that here in Finland the ban is much misunderstood as a specific assault on Moslems. In Northern Europe, where countries are officially Christian, and even in the States where there is an official separation of church and state but a lot of religious rhetoric in politics, people are not very familiar with the French brand of secularism.

France is a secular state. Very, very secular - perhaps the most secular one in the Western world. Their version of separation of church and state means, among other things, no proselytizing in public buildings, no religious symbols in schools, etc. They have a past full of religious strife and they have decided during the time of the Third Republic in 1905 that their way to go is a strong secular state which does not support religion or allow it in public schools. As to Islam being made a second-class religion: yes, that's right. That's what the rest of France's religions are, too, and have been for a century. Any reason why Islam should be an exception?

The French have perfectly good reasons for the ban, historically speaking. Pragmatically speaking I am a lot less sure. It might be that parents of Moslem children start putting them in Moslem schools, which might or might not be hotbeds of Islamic fanaticism. OTOH, fairly often it's not the parents who insist on veils, it's the kids themselves. Whether or not preventing them from wearing veils to school is a good way to combat their religious fanaticism I don't know. My first emotional response is that probably not. OTOH, some secular and semi-secular Moslem countries like Turkey, Uzbekistan and Tunisia ban veils in public buildings. Maybe they know something about Islamic fanaticism that we don't? Hard to say.

In Finland they have decided to have the public health system do religious circumcisions (of boys, naturally). Hello? WTF? Why is it still allowed at all, let alone on public money? Yes, there would be more damage if people did it at home by themselves, but if we go along this way we can justify female circumcision as well. And hey, I want late-term abortion too, 9th month for example. I really would try to induce an abortion with a knife or a knitting needle if I found myself 8 months pregnant - wouldn't it be so much nicer for everyone if I could have the abortion in a hospital for free?

I understand that it's traditional and everything (meaning that male circumcision is practiced by cultures that Europeans have been familiar with for a while, like Jews, Moslems and Americans, whereas female circumcision is a feature of African cultures that came in contact with Europe fairly recently), but why are we still allowing parents to cut off a child's body parts in the name of religion or tradition?

Yes, I also understand that female circumcision can be extremely debilitation while male usually isn't, but even the mildest forms of female circumcision, which can well be compared to male circumcision, are forbidden throughout the civilized world - when will the male circumcision be, too?

It would be interesting to know what position have various Western countries taken on scarring or tattooing a child's face for religious or traditional reasons.

It would be nice to ban circumcision from inside the religion (speaking as a Jew here), too. Religions change, including Judaism. We already have a standard procedure for converting into Judaism men who have already been circumcised, or men who cannot be circumcised for medical reasons. It is done with a pinprick instead of a circumcision. Why cannot that be used on all boys? And admit: how many of you who deem circumcision totally essential for our religion have eaten pork last month, or failed to observe the Shabbot?

BTW, banning circumcision makes a lovely topic for Passover Seder.