Surely banning the veil etc is best compared to the anti-smoking ban in public places. We limit the toxic effect of self-righteous ignorance by seeking to exclude it from democratic public life, to which the whole poerson must be admitted as of right: it is a mental health measure protecting the rest of us, like banning examples set by self-mutilation. Like Masons let them wear their funny dress in private, but never allow them to pollute the republic's open life. which is always based on the restoration and freedom of whole human persoinality.