A Florida judge on Friday refused to allow a Muslim mother and homemaker to obtain a driver’s license without removing her veil for the identification photo, saying it would set a dangerous precedent that might be exploited by criminals or terrorists.
While acknowledging that the woman “most likely poses no threat to national security,” state Circuit Judge Janet Thorpe ruled that if full-face cloaks were permitted in driver’s license photos, some people might pretend “to ascribe to religious beliefs in order to carry out activities that would threaten lives.”
“It would be foolish not to recognize that there are new threats to public safety, including both foreign and domestic terrorism,” the judge said.
In a 16-page ruling, Thorpe declined the request of Sultaana Freeman, a 35-year-old mother of two from Winter Park, Fla., that she be granted a driver’s license after being photographed wearing her niqab, a full-face veil that allows only her eyes to show.
During a three-day non-jury trial held in Orlando last week, Freeman testified that she is a devout Muslim and that exposing her face to strangers or to men from outside her family violates her religious beliefs.
Florida officials countered court that law-enforcement officials need the full-face photos on driver’s licenses to quickly and easily verify a person’s identity, and the judge concurred.
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“The state has always had a compelling interest in promoting public safety,” the judge said. “That interest is served by having the means to accurately and swiftly determine identities.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which had provided Freeman with a lawyer, called Friday’s ruling an encroachment on individual liberties that would not make Americans safer. Freeman’s attorney, Howard Marks, has said he would appeal any verdict against his client.
“Today’s ruling runs counter to the most basic principles of religious freedom that give everyone–including members of minority religious communities as well as majority Christian faiths–the right to practice and worship as they choose,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.
In her decision, Thorpe emphasized that Freeman wasn’t being “singled out” because she is a Muslim.
“This court would rule the same way for anyone–Christian, Jew, Buddhist, atheist–who wished to have his or her driver’s license identification photo taken while wearing anything–ski mask, costume mask, religious veil, hood–which cloaks all facial features except the eyes,” the judge said.
Officials of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles testified that they offered to arrange a special photo session during which Freeman could lift her veil while in a closed room with only a female department photographer present.
Thorpe said Freeman failed to demonstrate in her lawsuit that accepting this would place a “substantial burden” on her religious freedom.
Freeman, a Christian convert to Islam, did have a Florida driver’s license with a photo showing her clad in her veil, but the document was revoked in January 2002 when she refused to allow a new picture to be taken that would reveal her uncovered face.
In documents filed in the suit, the ACLU claimed at least 15 states have exemptions for drivers who have religious objections to being photographed. The group said that previous court cases in Colorado, Indiana and Nebraska were won by certain Christians, who believe the 2nd Commandment, which bars the creation of graven images, prohibits them from having their picture taken.