Western society’s latest in anti-Muslim hysterics is sweeping Europe this year in the form of wildly popular veil bans. France, a strongly secular nation and home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, will likely have a veil ban in place by September while Belgium’s lower house has passed a ban citing security reasons. A recent Pew poll found 82 percent of respondents in France approved the ban, 71 percent in Germany and 62 percent in Britain. Members of the Spanish ruling party have strongly suggested banning veils, calling them an “affront to human dignity.”

But the affront occurring in Western Europe is aimed at human liberty, not human dignity. The idea that veils such as niqabs or burqas present a security risk is simply an argument born out of ignorance via typecasting and fear. Stores are robbed every day by men in Europe who shield their faces with ski masks or similar guises yet no legislator would consider banning protective masks and scarves during the Belgian winter. Considering the threat of armed robbery is far more realistic than female Islamic martyrdom in Europe, we can concur with a recent columnist in the “New York Times” that “what inspires fear and mistrust in Europe, clearly, is not covering per se, but Muslim covering.”

Undoubtedly the most oft-used argument in favor of restricting this basic religious freedom implies that veils are symbols of an archaic past. A CBS article recently said of France, “The government has insisted that the bill is not about religion but has called it a way to promote equality between the sexes, to protect oppressed women or to ensure security in public places.” A legislator in Spain meanwhile called the burqa a “degrading prison” as he campaigned for its ban.

What are we to make of this argument, pushed forward by Catholic and Protestant men with little or no knowledge of Islam? I would begin by agreeing with their assessment of burqas. They are a primitive and horrendous symbol of the degradation Muslim women have traditionally faced – and still face – under Islamic law. To wear one within a Western society is much the equivalent of an African American dragging the chains that forced his ancestors into bondage. As a symbol they are a powerful and repugnant reminder of the occasional backwardness of religion.

Regardless, the decision to wear a veil is one’s own. The suggestion that men must ban an article of clothing so that women will not uphold a sexist past is sexist in itself. It takes the decision out of their hands, seemingly because these (mostly) male legislators feel Muslim women cannot decide for themselves. Long ago Turkey banned the veil, citing its inability to protect women who were harassed by Islamists. Using my prior example of American slavery, perhaps the Turkish government felt slaves should not have been freed due to the government’s inability to protect them from White Terror during Reconstruction.

Regardless, no such fear exists in Western Europe. The largest threat to the security and liberty of European Muslim women are the governments that vow to save them from themselves while in reality are upholding their own prejudicial ignorance and discrimination.