Is it unreasonable to ask people who want to live in open societies to show their faces to the community?

Anne Rosselot of Concord, New Hampshire, self-identifies as follows:

I am a woman, a feminist, a Democrat, an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter, the proud mother of a lesbian, a progressive Christian, a supporter of civil rights, a believer that Black Lives Matter, and a welcomer of refugees and other immigrants.

Yet because I oppose the wearing of the full Muslim veil in public, which functions as a face mask, [the New York Times] would label me a bigot [“Veiled Bigotry in Germany” (editorial, Dec. 8)].

People may feel that masked people in public are vaguely sinister and threatening; one instinctively looks at a person’s face to see whether this is a friend or a foe. It isn’t bigotry.

While the wearing of the veil may be protected speech here, it is not unreasonable to ask people who want to live in open societies to show their faces to the community. This is not bigotry.