Religious freedom: worth defending but within boundaries
Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church
When Carnita Matthews accused a police officer of threatening to rip off her burqa so he could identify her (June 9), the burqa again became an issue. Some felt it strengthened their campaign to ban the burqa. Others were more concerned about the actions of police officers.
Fortunately, the police video recording the incident showed the officer acting calmly and unthreateningly. Ms Matthews has apologised.
Behind it all, though, is the bigger question of religious freedom—the freedom to believe and practice your religion in ways meaningful to you.
Yesterday’s The Sunday Telegraph featured an interview with the New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione under the headline, “Show us your face.”
“This is not about disrespect; this has got nothing to do with religion,” he said. He argued there were times when whatever covered the face—a veil, a motorcycle helmet, a ski balaclava on the snowfields—needed to come off for identification purposes.
So, where do you draw the line with religious freedom? When does risk or threat to the community or, in this case, the ability to identify an individual, take a higher priority than the freedom to practice religion? It’s obvious when life or security (individual and national) is threatened, intervention is needed.
I don’t know of any mainstream religion that would disagree with this. And in the Matthew’s case, the Islamic Council clarified its position: “Islamically, for purposes of legally identifying an individual, a woman can remove her face covering, in the presence of a male.”
Sadly, in our multicultural, multiethnic and multi-religious nation, some are still suspicious of those who act or dress differently. Some even label them as extremists. A few suspect under every burqa lurks a terrorist.
That’s nonsense—and should be treated as such.
Absolute freedom for all is impossible. Only a few ever achieve absolute freedom—several of them now symbols of evil (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc). Religious freedom is worth defending and celebrating, but it will always have boundaries. The Matthews incident demonstrated that.
Tags: Bruce Manners