Posted on 05/27/2003 1:54:32 PM PDT by chance33_98
Muslim Woman Fights To Keep On Veil For License Photo
Posted: 12:34 p.m. EDT May 27, 2003
Updated: 2:51 p.m. EDT May 27, 2003 ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida's refusal to issue a driver's license to a Muslim woman unless she is photographed without her veil violates her religious rights, an ACLU attorney argued in court Tuesday. The requirement by the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles is a burden on Saltaana Freeman, a 35-year-old convert to Islam whose religious beliefs require her to keep her head and face covered out of modesty, said Howard Marks, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.
"This is about religious liberty. It's about whether this country is going to have religious diversity,'' said Marks at the beginning of Freeman's nonjury trial. "Allowing the state to chip away at religious liberties is not a path we want to go down.''
"There's no dispute in this case, your honor, that my client came to Florida in February 2001, was issued a Florida driver's license persuant to the rules and regulations in place at that time," Marks said. "The testimony is going to be that the law has not changed."
Marks also pointed out that Florida has issued more than 800,000 temporary driving permits in the last five years without photographs. And that some of the driver's license photos are 18 years old and barely resemble the card holder.
But Assistant Attorney General Jason Vail argued that having an easily identifiable photo on a driver's license was a matter of public safety since the photos are used during traffic stops, in financial transactions and to prevent identity fraud. Vail said there are limits to the religious liberties extended in the Florida Constitution if public safety is at stake.
"It's the primary method of identification in Florida and the nation,'' Vail said of the driver's license. "I don't think there can be any doubt there is a public safety interest.'' Circuit Judge Janet C. Thorpe must decide whether taking the photo would violate Freeman's religious beliefs and if the state has a compelling interest in not allowing her to obtain a license with her covered face in a photo.
In February 2001, Freeman obtained a Florida driver's license that had a photo of her face covered in a veil, but she received a letter from the state nine months later warning that it would revoke her license unless she returned for a photo with her face uncovered.
She refused and sued for the right to get a driver's license with a photo showing her face uncovered.
Her attorneys argued that state officials didn't care that she wore a veil in the photo until after the Sept. 11 attacks, an allegation denied by attorneys for the state.
Florida attorneys plan to call Islamic experts to the stand this week to testify that it is not mandatory or a sin for a Muslim woman to show her face for a state issued photograph, according to Local 6 News
Local 6 News also reported that the state also plans to submit into evidence a Time magazine photo of Elizabeth Smart that shows part of her face veiled. Attorneys would not comment on why they want to use the photo but there is speculation that they will use it as an example that a veiled face could hinder identification for authorities.
The trial is expected to last through the week, Local 6 News reported.
Modesty or voluntary oppression?
In addition, there are three court cases -- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (out of Nebraska and affirmed by an equally divided U.S. Supreme Court), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (out of Colorado) and a state court case out of the supreme court of Indiana -- that all reached the same conclusion regarding devout Christians who believe that the Second Commandment prohibits having their photographs taken and therefore, based upon their deeply held religious beliefs refused to have one taken for a driver's license.In each case, the court held that they had a First Amendment right to obtain a license without a photograph in order to accommodate a sincerely held religious belief. That a Muslim woman, who sincerely believes that she cannot appear in public or in front of strangers without wearing a Niqab because of her religion should be denied the same protection really underscores the problem with the revocation of the license. While it may be a very small number of Muslim women in Florida who believe in wearing a Niqab, it is equally true that there are a very small number of Christians who believe that the Second Commandment requires that they not have their picture taken.
There are numerous states, including Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon and South Carolina that have exceptions to photograph requirements for individuals who, for religious reasons, cannot have their picture taken for a driver's license. Thus, it is not novel to have exceptions to "full face" photographs on driver's licenses.
Yes. Keep us posted. This woman's contention is so full of inconsistencies, I'll be amazed if the State of Florida loses.
It's a new religion whose scriptures demand the death of all other people whose religions direct worshipers to lie to, and to kill people of, yet, other religions.
I am the prophet of this new religion. I, and no other, have been ordained to proclaim such. The Lord has spoken to me.
You may kill them, all others, whose religion claims that they may kill all others who don't believe and practice your religion, says the religion of Zerg.
Go get the sack!
Go get the sack!
Go get the sack!
She is a three bagger!
The only religions who fight to the death of other religions known to me, the creator of this new religion, is Islam, at this time.
If there are others, please notify me, Concentrate almighty.
They may well try to argue like they have with inmate cases (allowing them to bend the rules to practice their faith, such as hair length, etc and so on).
Anyway, here are the citations you requested:
There are a wide variety of other cases from other courts which have used the compelling state interest test to resolve conflicts between state laws and religious beliefs. For example, in Quaring v. Peterson, 728 F.2d 1121 (8th Cir. 1984), aff'd. sub nom. Jensen v. Quaring, 472 U.S. 478, 105 S.Ct. 3492 (1985), at issue was a Nebraska law [8] requiring photographs on driver's license; but, this requirement of the law violated Mrs. Quaring's beliefs based on Exodus 20:4 that photographs were "graven images." The Eighth Circuit found that Mrs. Quaring's beliefs were sincerely held religious beliefs which were in fact burdened by this state law. Weighing this law against the First Amendment claims of Mrs. Quaring, the court concluded that the state interests were not so compelling that her beliefs could not be accommodated and the court required Nebraska to issue her a driver's license. See also the similar case of Bureau of Motor Vehicles v. Pentecostal House of Prayer, Inc., 269 Ind. 361, 380 N.E.2d 1225 (1978).
In Dennis v. Charnes, 571 F.Supp. 462 (D.Colo. 1983), Mr. Dennis had the same beliefs as Mrs. Quaring regarding Colorado's requirement for a photograph upon driver's licenses which he challenged in this litigation. He appealed the dismissal of his complaint and the Tenth Circuit reversed in Dennis v. Charnes, 805 F.2d 339 (10th Cir. 1984). On remand in Dennis v. Charnes, 646 F.Supp. 158 (D.Colo. 1986), the district court held the photograph requirement void as to Mr. Dennis since it abridged his religious beliefs.
source
I was thinking of him. He was a pioneer--he blazed the way for the unknown driver.
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