It was in America, of all places, in the bosom of the Great Satan, that I first saw burqa-wearers "in the flesh" so to speak. Standing in a shopping mall in Baltimore six years ago, I noticed these two things - presumably human beings - walking past clad head-to-toe in grim black.
As a wee boy from Belfast - where religious attire is a Rangers top and a balaclava - I was taken aback at this exotic sight. In fact I almost physically recoiled at the horror of it, at the sheer life-hating mentality which would consider the revelation of a single inch of female flesh to be an affront to God.
Since then I have seen many people in varying forms of Islamic dress, some of it like the hijab I actually find quite elegant, but the bin bag still startles me when I come upon it in the street. And I hope it always will, for it is truly monstrous.
Perhaps Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw feels as strongly as me about the burqa (and it’s lily-livered sister the niqab, for brazen hussies who want to flaunt their eyes to all and sundry). But of course, he would never be stupid enough to say so in public. He has though caused a storm by revealing that he asks veiled visitors to his constituency surgery to remove their masks so they can talk face-to-face.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (no, that’s not a typo) criticised the former Home Secretary’s remarks. Its chairman Massoud Shadjareh said: "It is astonishing that someone as experienced and senior as Jack Straw does not realise that the job of an elected representative is to represent the interests of the constituency, not to selectively discriminate on the basis of religion."
But is Mr Straw really discriminating? The Blackburn MP was at pains to point out that he asks, rather than demands, that the veil is removed. And, given that he always has another woman in the room for such meetings, isn’t he already being more than accommodating to those of his constituents who have been brought up to despise their own gender?
Not according to the Stop The War Coalition which organised a protest in Blackburn today against Mr Straw which was attended by 50 people and 20 bin bags, presumably containing human beings. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this, that a supposedly left-wing movement should rally to the cause of religious fundamentalism and misogyny.
As with the Danish cartoon controversy, it is sickening to see supposed secualrists supporting the enslavement of countless millions around the world. For have no doubt, that is what the burqa is. To walk around in these grim prisons, a woman will have had to internalise two things from an early age - that her body is something to be ashamed of and that men are so prone to sexual violence that only the full tent treatment will stop them. It hardly needs to be stated that this mentality is both anti-women and anti-men, based on a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature.
Yet some on the left support the continuation of this misogyny on the spurious grounds that wearing a bin bag must be respected because it is part of someone’s "culture". To which the only reply must be, so what? Getting drunk on the 11 of July and burning an effigy of the Pope is part of my culture, but I don’t respect it, let alone demand that others must. Slave-owning was once part of western culture. Should that have been respected? Germany has a rich history of anti-Semitism. Is this also to be respected or is it to be challenged?
Good things are good and bad things are bad, whether or not they are part of a people’s history. Those who hide behind the veil of respecting that which they know is wrong just because it is traditional are moral cowards. All cultures have good parts and bad parts. Surely the point is to keep the good and slowly weed out the bad, not to freeze culture with a mentality which is centuries out of date.
But such positive change is made more difficult if we, in the post-Christian west, acquiesce in a system of slavery which we would not tolerate being imposed on ourselves. This is not to say that people should be forced to remove their tents. In a free society, I must respect someone else’s right to wear a bin bag. But I do not have to agree with it.