I am Muslim by birth and I find the burqa confronting. I even wish no women would wear it. Does that make me a bigot?

Tony Abbott used similar words last week when he stated that a Muslim woman should not be permitted to give evidence in a West Australian court with a burqa concealing her face.

The internet exploded with well-intentioned outrage. ''Oh yeah I find your f---ing face confronting,'' the writer and radio host Marieke Hardy said on Twitter. ''I find budgie smugglers a 'confronting form of attire' and wish 'fewer' Australians would wear it,'' the Greens staffer David Paris tweeted.

It is the natural tendency for many to leap to the defence of those they feel have been marginalised or unfairly targeted. But in this instance, their defence is problematic.

Let me be clear that I do not and will never advocate a Western-imposed ban on the burqa. Apart from consolidating Muslim women's unfair place as the primary targets of Islamophobia, the only outcome a ban would achieve would be confining them to the home.