Saturday Night With a Beer (or whatever) -Part 2

We went on a kayak trip down a rain swollen river today, the scout troop and I, and save for a nasty sunburn on the top of my foot (actually both-but one is decidedly worse than the other)  I fared fairly well. The water was moving faster and higher than we had ever seen it on our annual trips down the Guadalupe, taking almost two hours off the trip (though part of that was due to the fact that we did not stop and swim as usual).
Good fun but I am fairly whacked.

Still, I cannot forgo a new tradition on only its second night, so here we go.

Here is tonight's question. Once again, feel free to change the question around or add your own completely different question.

France and Belgium have recently gone about banning, or attempting to ban the Muslim veils. Switzerland has passed legislation in the the same regards concerning new Minarets.
Do you think this is a result of a position against Muslims, a security issue or an attempt at preserving specific cultural identity? Or perhaps a combination of all three or some thing else?

I'm working on getting chat added to the blog to make these discussions easier but until then, we'll have to make due with the comments.