You mean to tell me you missed World Hijab Day? Don’t feel bad. I did too.

Turns out Feb. 1 was actually the 10th World Hijab Day. Founded in 2013 by Nazma Khan, a Muslim refugee from Bangladesh who came to America as a child, she wanted to empower Muslim women to wear the hijab with pride.

She hopes it will fight discrimination, encourage awareness among people of all faiths to wear hijab for day, to learn why it is worn.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, a hijab is a veil that covers the head and shoulders. It’s often worn by Muslim women as a sign of modesty and a symbol of their faith. This shouldn’t strike non-muslims as that controversial. Most churches and synagogues, for example, expect their congregants to dress conservatively during worship.

I can’t speak for others, but I want a world where people can wear whatever clothes, shoes, hairstyles, prints, turbans and tattoos they want, without being subject to insults, taunting, bigotry, or prejudice.

That’s true regardless of what the majority is wearing or who’s on the cover of Vogue. If I saw someone harassing a woman wearing hijab, I hope I’d have the moral courage to step in. I think most people would. Then again, I think most people are decent human beings.

While there are legitimate reasons to require a person’s face to be visible under certain limited circumstances, none of that should affect hijab. It’s not a face covering. And yet, many European countries, including France, Belgium, Russia, Germany and Bulgaria, have enacted hijab bans in one form or another. Regrettably, if the ACLU is to be believed, hijab-wearing women in the U.S. regularly have their constitutionally protected hijab-wearing rights infringed.

As an American, I find that shameful. It makes me understand the motives behind World Hijab Day.

That said, we must face the other side of the insanity of our modern world. Yes, discrimination and banning hijab is bad. But making it compulsory is even worse. And that is exactly the situation one courageous Arab woman is fighting.

Masih Alinejad began the online movement “My Stealthy Freedom” in 2014, one year after the first World Hijab Day. Hijab is the law for women in Iran and Afghanistan. Ms. Alinejad has painstakingly gathered videos of Iranian women showing how you can be lectured, harassed, pulled over, fined, arrested, and imprisoned by the “morality police” simply for being improperly veiled. That is not a mere cultural difference. That is mass insanity.

In response to World Hijab Day, Ms. Alinejad has called upon Muslim women to support “No Hijab Day”. Good for her. The world absolutely needs to be aware of the existence of modern-day tyrannical regimes that dictate what women must wear, threatening them with violence if they don’t comply. Ask the internet about “My Stealthy Freedom” to learn more.

What gets lost in the shouting between “World Hijab Day!” and “No Hijab Day!”, between “Hijab must be banned!” and “Hijab is the law!” is the obvious middle ground: “Hijab is my choice!”. Why is this so hard to understand? Why can’t women who want to wear hijab be allowed to do so? Why can’t women who don’t want to wear hijab be allowed to let their hair fly free? What exactly is hard about this?

To tell you the truth, I’m not exactly sure. My guess is that in our increasingly dualistic, all-or-nothing political discourse, no one wants to articulate for choice consistently. Someone might be pro-choice on abortion, but not when it comes to schools. Choice in religion is fine, but not choice in whom you marry. “My body my choice” when it comes to vaccines, but not when it comes to mind-altering pharmaceuticals.

To my mind, these are hypocritical positions.

But even if I’m wrong, can I at least convince you individual choice deserve a louder voice in politics than it gets? You’d be surprised at how many problems it solves. I particularly like it on humanity’s toughest:

Why can’t we all just get along?