Quite contrarily, this is actually lifting a ban: a ban on the right of women to choose their own dress, a ban on the right women to disagree with the clerical male authority, and a ban on all citizens to not be able to look at one another in the face. If all citizens are equal before the law, then - rightly - we are also equal in the face of each other.
On the door of my bank, there is a sign politely asking all customers to take off any form of facial concealment before they enter. The notice doesn't bother to explain: anyone going in wearing any sort of mask would incur the right and proper presumption of guilt. That presumption should operate - equally - for everyone. Would you have any sort of dealings with a doctor or nurse whose face was covered? Or a tax inspector or customs official. What about a police officer? And why is it you never see such people wearing veils? Indeed...
The special demand to consider the niqab and burqa as an exemption applies only to women. And only to one religious practice. That, at once, tells you all you need to know: Society is being asked to abandon immemorial traditions of equality and openness in order to gratify one faith, on faith that has very questionable respect for women.
And what about the KKK? They are notorious for their wearing of a hood that covers the face and in their history have always upheld a protestant and Anglo-Saxon purity. Nobody can really deny the right of the KKK to take this faith-based view, which is protected by the first amendment of the US Constitution. At a rally they could even hide their faces. But they wouldn't be able to teach children whilst wearing it, wouldn't be able to enter the bank, or drive a bus, etc.
There are other objections to the veil - they have often been used by criminals both religious and common to conceal their identities. They have also been used to hide injuries inflicted upon abused women. It's not compatible with driving, due to its effect on the peripheral vision, which would remove it from the sphere of private decision making as it's a danger to others, as well as offence to the ordinary democratic civility that depends on phrases like 'nice to see you.'
Of course, in some muslim societies, women aren't allowed to drive anyway. But that just reinforces the second point here. All of the above would be valid if all Muslim women were as committed to wearing the veil as the KKK are to wearing the hood. But we have no assurances that the veil is purely a matter of choice. And, in fact, a huge amount of evidence goes the other way. A huge amount of evidence goes the other way. Mothers, wives, and daughters have been threatened with acid in the face, or honor-killing, or vicious beating, if they do not adopt the humiliating outer clothing that is mandated by their menfolk.
In many Muslim countries, the veiled look is illegal in government buildings, schools, and universities. So why should Europeans - and Americans - seeking to perhaps accommodate Muslim immigrants, adopt the standard of only the most backward and primitive Muslim states?
In the end, the right of women to show their faces easily trumps the right of t heir male relatives or imams to decide otherwise.
