This is just weird… Apparently, in Quebec and Ontario, you can now vote with a burqa on if you really really super secret swear without your fingers crossed that you are who you say you are.

Ottawa, Canada The Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD) regards as unconscionable Elections Canada’s reported new policy of allowing Muslim women to wear identity-concealing face veils, including full burqas, when voting in upcoming federal by-elections in Quebec and Ontario. Canada’s federal elections’ regulator says Muslim women can “vote veiled” merely by identifying themselves with a driver’s licence and second piece of identification. As an alternative, “covered” women need only swear an oath and have another voter vouch for them.

This reminds me of the driver’s license controversy in Florida a few years ago where a judge ruled that:

“Although the court acknowledges that plaintiff herself most likely poses no threat to national security, there likely are people who would be willing to use a ruling permitting the wearing of full-face cloaks in driver’s license photos by pretending to ascribe to religious beliefs in order to carry out activities that would threaten lives,”

When your ID (and in this case your vote) is determined by affirmatively confirming your identity, isn’t it a little weird to try and see identity in eyes? Look at the picture above. Would you recognize someone you love wearing one of those? I know I wouldn’t.

The other funny part is that this is probably just a “sensitivity” type rule. even in the most oppressive backward regimes in the world, women are not required to remain cloaked for ID. Check out the graphic to the right. Makes you wonder where all these Americans and Canadians got the idea? I mean, in Saudi Arabia, women aren’t allowed to drive at all, but look at the other countries…

Just a weird decision. I’m all for religious liberty, but your right to religious liberty does not surpass an official’s right to positively identify you in the case of voting in an election or obtaining an official state ID.

Case closed.

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