Well, it's a bit of a stealth piece, as he's claiming to argue that while really arguing the reverse. He's not arguing for greater freedom, he's arguing agains

Well, it's a bit of a stealth piece, as he's claiming to argue that while really arguing the reverse. He's not arguing for greater freedom, he's arguing against religious freedom. Look at the examples he chooses. He's not really arguing that anyone should be able to wear veils, not have pictures on their IDs, carry sheathed knives, etc. He's arguing that if voters wouldn't see any random person as needing/deserving to be able to do something, then nobody should be able to do it based on religion. Myself, I'd say sure, let kids carry knives, whether pocketknives (as people in my neck of the woods happily let kids in prior generations) or kirpans. On the other hand, the writer's dog-whistling, saying that we should only do something as crazy as let Sikh kids carry kirpans if we'd be willing to have a stabby bloodbath in our (well, Canadian) schools. While I'd love to be able to skip legal protection of enumerated rights, knowing that the government would respect my freedoms in every conceivable formulation, it ain't gonna happen. The best-case situation in Western society is that the government remains leery of obviously stepping on the rights that people most object to having abridged - free speech, religion, etc. ETA: And yes, that means that some people will have a "privilege" - ie, they'll be exempted from some stupid law that would harm or impair them even more than it does everyone else. In that case, the answer isn't to attack the privilege, it's to attack the thing the privilege protects against.