"(...) can and should governments have anything to do with the clothes we wear? Or where and how we pray?"
The government should not have a
say in how we dress. The way one dresses is equivalent to how one chooses to
express his or herself. One of the rights we have in this country is the
freedom of expression. Wouldn’t it seem odd to fine or imprison a citizen due
to the way they were dressed? “You are under arrest for wearing a head dress.” It
does not seem exactly the most threatening thing to arrest or fine someone for.
There are reasons why it could be a threat- such as people with head dresses
can potentially rob a place and get away with it- however, not everybody in
head dresses have the objective of committing a crime. How do we differentiate
the two? We cannot. We would just have to wait until a crime is committed to
take action. Otherwise, we should give people the benefit of the doubt. We are
all innocent until proven guilty.
In
addition to our freedom of expression, we as citizens have freedom to practice
any religion we desire. This implies that we can pray wherever and however we
would like as long as it is not disruptive. I have never heard of praying being
an issue unless the bystanders make
it an issue, but that is just it. The bystanders
are the ones making it a problem because they are not comfortable with the
practices. If people accepted the praying sessions, then there would not be a
problem. Have you ever heard, “That person was praying, which prevented me from
carrying on with my daily life”? I have not. Unless they are physically in the
way, I do not see the issue. Being physically in the way is another story; it
is different than praying being an issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment