Georgia State Rep. Jason Spencer, a Republican, has given up his efforts to get his state to adopt a bill that, according to the Washington Post, would have forbidden wearing masks or other face coverings in public, and would have “banned men and women from wearing clothing that conceals their faces when posing for their drivers’ license photos or while driving on state roadways.”

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Spencer should not have withdrawn the bill. There was nothing wrong with it, and it would have curbed criminal and/or terrorist activity committed by people with their faces concealed. But Spencer’s bill ran afoul of the “Islamophobia” victimhood industry.

The Post story details what happened:

“The bill did not specifically mention Muslim women, burqas or niqabs, and Spencer insisted he had ‘no intention of targeting a specific group.’ But officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, said its purpose was pretty apparent.”

Edward Ahmed Mitchell of CAIR-Georgia said: “We suspect it’s motivated by a desire to discriminate against Georgia Muslims.”

CAIR’s opposition to the bill is telling. CAIR is a U.S. front group for the jihad terror group Hamas. And in reality, the bill was motivated by a desire to stop terrorists, as Spencer explained:

“This bill is simply a response to constituents that do have concerns of the rise of Islamic terrorism, and we in the State of Georgia do not want our laws used against us.”

He also explained that the measure was simply a public safety issue:

“Number one, you’re not (only) a public safety risk by blocking and obstructing your vision while on the road, but also that you’re identifiable to law enforcement.”

The idea of banning face coverings in public is not new.

Georgia lawmaker pulls burqa ban billhttps://t.co/83Zmj2hVtZ pic.twitter.com/UZqr2nMrJK — The Hill (@thehill) November 17, 2016

It was done all over the American West when the West was still wild and bandits and thieves routinely covered their faces. Such a ban does not breach the right to freedom of religion, and today it is a key national security issue. The Islamic full-face covering, the niqab and the burqa, have both been used many times as camouflage for jihad activity, as well as simple criminal activity.

This has happened in the U.S. as well as elsewhere around the world; in Philadelphia, people wearing niqabs to hide their faces have been involved in kidnapping and bank robbery.

What’s more, the Islamic face covering for women is not a religious symbol; rather, it is iconic of female subservience and debasement.

Muhammad directed that women must cover everything but their face and hands as a sign of their subjugation: “‘When a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this,’ and he pointed to her face and hands.”

The niqab and burqa are a political statement — one of misogyny, subjugation and oppression of women — but as heinous as that is, that is not the reason why they should be banned.

The tangential benefit of such a ban is that it would constitute support for liberalism against darkness. But the primary reason why such a ban is needed is that the veil hides people’s identities — in this dangerous day and age that cannot stand.

And while the French banned the burqa to maintain the French values of individualism and human dignity, the Georgia proposal was purely based on national security issues, and was not specifically religious or directed at any specific group or organization.

Breitbart News noted that Spencer was “seeking to add the language banning the veil, called a hijab and niqab, as well as a burqa, to the state’s anti-Ku Klux Klan laws meant to stop Klan members from wearing hoods and other masks to conceal their identity.” Indeed, from a security standpoint, what’s the difference between KKK face coverings and the niqab and burqa?

We are at war, despite the fog of misinformation, disinformation and apologetics that keeps people from understanding the nature and magnitude of the war we are in.

And so it is no surprise that it is not just Muslim women, but of course Islamic supremacist groups such as CAIR that worked to make Spencer’s proposal all about Islamo"faux"bia.

They portray every security measure as an attack on Muslims — this is an extraordinary strategy and seemed certainly destined to fail, save for the indefatigable support that Islamic apologists enjoy in the media.

The reality is that it would have been a law regarding all face coverings, and it makes sense. Such a law is particularly needed in light of the fact that we have yet to suffer the full consequences of Obama’s disastrous immigration and foreign policies.

We dodged a bullet by electing Donald Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE, but we have much to deal with. Jason Spencer should have stood firm. It is time we stopped sacrificing our national security on the spurious altar of “diversity.”

Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter @atlasshrugs. Like her on Facebook.