Muslim women often are forced to wear head coverings, if not by law then by custom they do not feel free to violate. Mind you, I’m not defending Quebec’s law, but I wish people would be less simplistic about this.

I lived in the Detroit area for decades, which if you don’t know has a large Lebanese/Arab/Muslim population going back some generations.

Many of my friends are Arab/Muslim women. Most of them tell me they feel oppressed by social requirements to cover their heads. Granted, given that I’m a gay man and socially progressive, my Muslim friends tend to be socially progressive too. But that doesn’t mean their families and societies are progressive. That doesn’t mean they don’t feel religious pressure to do things they don’t want to do.

Let’s face it, while progressive Islam exists, Islam in general treats women like dirt. That’s reality. You’ll never understand that better than by going to Belle Isle Park in Detroit and watching Muslim women and girls with their bodies completely covered sitting on hot sand on a blistering humid day while the boys and men in their families cavort in the water in skimpy swimsuits.

This is real, this happens, a lot. And those women and girls don’t feel like they have a choice about their religion. They can either follow the conservative religious practices that their family values, or they can suffer.

I know, because I’ve seen it up close and personal and I’m not kidding.

We do ourselves no favors by pretending that religion, particularly conservative religion, has not been designed to oppress women or that it does not oppress women every day.

I grew up in conservative Christianity, Evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christian beliefs are repugnant. They are viciously sexist. Yes, some women go along with that. Some women promote it, promote the idea that women should be subject to their husbands.

But that doesn’t make the beliefs any less disgusting and horrible.