Let’s just dive into this with some controversial topics: religious freedom and women’s rights.

The Dutch announced this week that they are considering a ban on women wearing burkas in public. Geert Wilders, the MP that proposed the bill, feels that the burkas are a medieval symbol, a “symbol against women.” Quite frankly, I can’t help but agree. While I agree to the freedom of religious expression, I can’t help but feel that there is something insidious and repressive about the burka. After all, it essentially robs the woman of her identity and makes her place in society one of anonymity, and to be anonymous in life is really to deprive you of the most basic human dignity.

But is it a legitimate thing for a government to pass laws on? There is a fine line with government and religion. I think that the distance between the two should be vast, and although I believe strongly that faith, in whatever form, should be part of everyone’s lives, I don’t believe that government should step in and mandate or forbid religious practices. This, coincidently, is what makes Bush’s recent appointment Eric Keroack of the head of family-planning so hard to swallow.

I had high hopes that the recent democratic win (actually, really a republican loss) in congress represented a rejection of polarized political views by the American people, and I hoped that having a bipartisan government would force Bush to walk the middle road and would force some accountability on his part. And he promised he would. But appointing someone who is currently employed as the head of a Christian non-profit, a Woman’s Concern, a group that feels that birth control is degrading to women seems rather partisan and entirely misses the point, don’t you think? Step back into reality Mr. Bush.

While abstinence until marriage is a noble idea, it’s not an effective way to prevent teen pregnancies (or STDs) in this country. And in any way denying access to birth control is degrading to women. But then again, so is the burka.