«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

To be really crude about it, in the United States, if you do anything and say that it's because it's my religious belief, there is some kind of hallowed ground that you cannot touch, because everybody must be able to do what they want in religion. And to make an equally crude generalization of what happens in Europe, they spent some 500 years fighting over religion and trying to get rid of the church in their lives, so the last thing they want is to justify anything in terms of religion. So it's the opposite obsession almost -- to keep religion out of everything. But what really disturbs me about the European context is that the ban is driven almost solely by xenophobic right wingers who I know very well don't give a toss about women's rights. What they're doing is they're hijacking an issue that they know is very emotive and very easy to sell to Europeans who are scared about immigration, Europeans who are scared about the economy, Europeans who don't understand people who look and sound different than them. They've taken advantage of this and done it very well. I'm very disappointed with the left wing and liberals in Europe for not speaking up and saying, the burqa ban has everything to do with women's rights. We are fighting against an ideology that does not believe in women's rights, and we will not allow the right wing to hijack this issue for their own purposes.

-Salon
July 21 2010