Modest dress and the law

I feel somewhat disturbed by the number of countries in Europe which have banned, in part or in whole, Muslim head coverings.

I understand the discomfort with the burqa or even face veils. These are, in my opinion, signs of a somewhat-too-conservative Islam, one that is still prone to treating their women as second-class citizens. It's understandable that countries which believe in gender equality would prefer to restrict things that seem to undermine that. But not all the laws target only burqas or veils. Some target hijab and similar scarves, which I just do not understand or agree with.

I am not, of course, a Muslim, and I am not a scholar of the Qu'ran, but the impression I have gotten from what I do know is that modesty is not meant to be overly restrictive, but rather, a sign of humility before Allah, and also to help avoid temptation. There is the additional benefit that a modestly-dressed person—of either gender—is likely to get more attention for who they are than what they look like; from what I understand, this is a benefit some Muslim women truly feel more comfortable with.

This is not something Muslims are alone in. There are Christians who believe in dressing modestly, including covering the head or the hair, particularly in church. There are Jews that keep their head or hair covered, or who dress overall modestly, for similar reasons of humility before God (along with other reasons). There are people of other religions or even of no religion at all who feel more comfortable when dressed modestly, in fact.

So why do people spend so much time focusing on the Muslims who do so? It should be up to the individual to choose how they show their devotion to their religion and to God. Imposing laws forbidding forms of Muslim-specific modest dress seems to go against the purpose of religious freedom. Even though I might support forbidding some of the more restrictive versions, I am not at all comfortable with the attempts to ban all of them without any regard for understanding why someone might choose to wear a head-scarf or other head covering, particularly when such laws do not ban similar clothing from other religions.