Posted on 01/24/2003 11:57:56 AM PST by McGruff
Sultaana Freeman, 35, filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday after the state's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles refused to issue her a state identification card.
Freeman applied for a state ID card in October.
Freeman was originally allowed to wear her veil, which only reveals her eyes, to obtain a Florida driver's license. However, the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles discovered her veiled face in a post-Sept. 11 check of its driver's licenses database.
When officials requested that Freeman take a driver's license photo without the veil, she refused. She said her religious beliefs dictated that she should not show her face to strangers or men outside her family. She also said that her constitutional rights were violated.
"I don't show my face to strangers or unrelated males," Freeman said in an earlier Local 6 News report.
She sued when her driver's license was revoked in 2001.
Freeman's attorney, Howard Marks, has said that the government's stand on this matter is unconstitutional.
Local 6 News reported that Florida law states that license applicants be issued "a color photographic or digital imaged driver's license bearing a full-face photograph.
State officials said that agency rules prevent them from issuing cards with photographs of covered faces.
Freeman, who is an American-born converted Muslim, will go to trial in April for another lawsuit which seeks the reinstatement of her driver's license with a veil.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story
Sorry...we're full.
Yep - when cultures happen to clash, I'd say the culture in which you reside should win.
In the state of Florida (as, I'm sure in many other states) the operation of a motor vehicle on public thoroughfares is a PRIVILEGE - not a right. The state extends to you and I or anyone else requesting of them, the PRIVILEGE to use the roads, providing or course, that you obey the state laws when doing so. If you do not abide, your PRIVILEGE is taken away. Believe me - I know from first hand experience (long story)
There is no place in the US or Florida Constitution that says a person has a RIGHT to operate a motor vehicle on our roads. SO, she can take her burka and veil and wear them all day and night if she chooses to. She just cannot operate a car while doing so.
She will lose.
She will win. The problem is that Florida is one of those states that will issue a license without a photo. In the place of the photo is the statement "valid without photo." Florida routinely issues these to, among others, military members who claim Florida as a home of record and need to get a license renewed. They send in their money and a new license is issed without a photo attached. What makes her any different? If they do it for one they have to do it for another.
"Eleven other states allow women to wear veils for license photos, and there are exceptions to the requirement, such as probationary licenses and seven-day permits, which don't require photos, Marks argued. "
Hmmm....this is the first I've heard of that. I'll have to look into it. I DO know this much. After recently changing addresses and getting a new license w/photo, I was told by one of the clerks that you can now renew and update by mail and get a NEW license with the same photo.
Digital technology allows the DHSMV to store your photo on a computer in Tallahassee. When you request a renewal or update, they create a brand new license using that photo. So if a member of the military has at any time had a photo license in the state, and they renew by mail, they will get a replacement using the last picture that was on file.
That doesn't matter, nor will it come into play in trial. Each state is soveriegn. That means that they do not have to do what another state is doing. If Florida extends a privilege to it's citizens, it is not bound by the way other states have extended that same privilege to their residents. There is no precedent.
I'll have to look for which states these are. And do they also allow men to wear face masks?
But Florida already extends that privilege to absentee residents. There is precedent.
You mean Florida already extends the privilege of wearing a veil for their license to absentee residents? I'll have to look into that too.
Yeah - I wonder what would happen if I wore a hockey mask to the DMV and told them my name was "Jason"? :-)
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