Clearly, the issue of mask-wearing generates strong feelings on both sides.  The problem lies in coercion: When people are unilaterally forced to do something, it's a part of human nature to reject it.

As the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine have reported, masks do not confer any appreciable benefit to the wearer or surrounding people.  Doctors and other medical professionals know how to use them and keep them sanitary, unlike members of the public who are regularly seen tucking them under their noses and chins, and laying them down on any kind of unsanitary surface while they eat.

The science just isn't there for a universal mask-wearing requirement.  As the NEJM stated less than a month ago: "We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic."  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372

Mask proponents will point to the uptick in cases being reported in several states, some of which do not require masks.  Yet two-thirds of states do not currently have such a requirement, and nearly all continue to report a decline in cases.  Moreover, national daily death averages have been steadily ticking downward for nearly three months.

No one should be prohibited from wearing a mask in any public setting, but a requirement remains a divisive issue that obstructs our ability to work together for a full societal recovery from Covid-19.