the other problem is that people are keen on saying she should be able to wear her veil if she wants to, but i'd like to know what everyone else who requires an ID from their customers/police stops are supposed to do.
We're required to accomodate her. That's the cost of living in a free society. Her rights are more important than our convenience.
stop and think about that statement and what it would mean applied on a nation-wide scale for every religion in this country.
it's impossible. if nothing else, the requirements to accomodate one relgion would directly conflict with the requirements of another.
I have thought about it and I can't come up with a scenario like you describe. I've also thought about the ramifications of deciding in a court of law that her rights can be taken away in this instance. Have you?
-t
ps - the last post on the second page may be getting skipped by some people. I'd appreciate it if it were read.
Doesn't anyone see where this is going? We're taking away her rights for convenience. I guess I'm the only one bothered by this...
We would not be taking away any of her rights. She has a right to wear a veil as much as she likes. While it's true that driving is a privilege, not a right, she does have a right to equal enforcement of the law, and should be able to obtain a driver's license if she meets the same requirements everyone else is expected to meet.
None of us, however, has any inherent constitutional right to be exempted from the rules others in our society have to follow.
In the extreme, this is obvious: No matter what your religion says, we aren't going to make exceptions to laws against homicide so you can carry out human sacrifices. In the cases where we have made exceptions (religious uses of otherwise illegal drugs) I see that as a "nice" thing to do, but hardly anything that the Constitution requires.
You speak of "convenience". Photo IDs are more than a mere "convenience" -- they're a fairly natural, reasonable form of ID. Not perfect, not completely irreplacable, but certainly well understood, quite entrenched, and it would be an enormous and costly national burden, not a mere inconvenience, to scrap the whole system in hopes of coming up with something that, hopefully, maybe, wouldn't conflict with someone's religion somewhere.
People keep treating religion here as if it were something you simply can't help, like race, or like a birth defect. Religion is a choice, and the repercussions of that choice are the follower's responsibility.
The government shouldn't persecute you for that choice, and it shouldn't pass laws aimed specifically at making it difficult to follow your chosen faith. But when a law exists for good, non-religious reasons, there is no government obligation to exempt people from these laws in order to facilitate and accomodate the practice of a particular religion.
Laws requiring photo IDs (useful photo IDs -- pictures of people in veils aren't useful) weren't constructed by people who had an agenda of stopping Muslim women from driving. There's nothing discriminatory about such laws.
If my religion requires all members to enter an isolated, monastic life at age 30, does the government have to allow members of my religion become President as young as 22, 13 years earlier than anyone else, so that it's possible for members of my religion to serve two full terms as President, without giving up their religious duty to monasticism?
Or at some point, do people become (gasp!) responsible for the choices they make in life, and for accepting tradeoffs due to those choices?
We would not be taking away any of her rights. She has a right to wear a veil as much as she likes. While it's true that driving is a privilege, not a right, she does have a right to equal enforcement of the law, and should be able to obtain a driver's license if she meets the same requirements everyone else is expected to meet.
Where exactly is she not meeting the same requirements for getting DL? She took the driver's test, passed the written one, and has insurance. What other requirements are there? Getting her photo made? That's also being done. The hangup is this uncovering her face. Where in the law does it say that she has to uncover her face for the photo? We're confabulating the issue here: id versus fitness to drive. Many of us are saying that she shouldn't be allowed to drive, despite the fact she is fit to because she can't be easily id'ed.
Quote:
In the extreme, this is obvious: No matter what your religion says, we aren't going to make exceptions to laws against homicide so you can carry out human sacrifices. In the cases where we have made exceptions (religious uses of otherwise illegal drugs) I see that as a "nice" thing to do, but hardly anything that the Constitution requires.
Don't be hard headed. Everyone knows (and I stated) that when someone else is harmed, rights end (in a simplistic way of looking at it). There is no way anyone could prove direct harm - or indirect for that matter - resulting from her right to wear a veil. I'm not talking about these hypothetical religions that require murder or drug use or stealing.
Quote:
You speak of "convenience". Photo IDs are more than a mere "convenience" -- they're a fairly natural, reasonable form of ID. Not perfect, not completely irreplacable, but certainly well understood, quite entrenched, and it would be an enormous and costly national burden, not a mere inconvenience, to scrap the whole system in hopes of coming up with something that, hopefully, maybe, wouldn't conflict with someone's religion somewhere.
And? They're a convenience plain and simple. Handicap entrances are also costly, but required. Just because they cost money and require some work doesn't mean they shouldn't be required.
Quote:
People keep treating religion here as if it were something you simply can't help, like race, or like a birth defect. Religion is a choice, and the repercussions of that choice are the follower's responsibility.
It's a choice that people are free to make in this country. Or at least were free to make. Now we're more than willing to force people to give up RIGHTS under the guise of Nat'l Security.
Quote:
The government shouldn't persecute you for that choice, and it shouldn't pass laws aimed specifically at making it difficult to follow your chosen faith. But when a law exists for good, non-religious reasons, there is no government obligation to exempt people from these laws in order to facilitate and accomodate the practice of a particular religion.
Laws requiring photo IDs (useful photo IDs -- pictures of people in veils aren't useful) weren't constructed by people who had an agenda of stopping Muslim women from driving. There's nothing discriminatory about such laws.
We're just going to have to disagree on this one. Except that I've not seen anyone to show me where a picture of a full face is law for identification purposes. I'm still waiting on that. Keep in mind that I'm not against id'ing people. I just want to know where it says that a picture id is the only way to do it.
Quote:
If my religion requires all members to enter an isolated, monastic life at age 30, does the government have to allow members of my religion become President as young as 22, 13 years earlier than anyone else, so that it's possible for members of my religion to serve two full terms as President, without giving up their religious duty to monasticism?
Slight of hand here. You're changing the subject again. The only way for a person to become president in this case would be a change of the law. There's no two ways about this one. It's unequivocal. However, there are other - and more effective - ways of id'ing people. And it's not law. Again.
Quote:
Or at some point, do people become (gasp!) responsible for the choices they make in life, and for accepting tradeoffs due to those choices?
You think that her life is going to get easier even if she gets this veil thing through the courts? I'd guess she's fully willing to make trade-offs and she has already, no doubt. She's never going to fly a plane dressed like that. She'll never ride a bike or go swimming at the beach. Choices lead to trade-offs. She's not asking for a beach closed off just for women so she can go swimming. She's asking for her right to conceal her face and still be accorded the ability to do things like cash checks, drive, buy cigarettes, etc. You make it seem like she's asking the world...
Thanks for the reasoned response though. Good food for thought...
She's asking for her right to conceal her face and still be accorded the ability to do things like cash checks, drive, buy cigarettes, etc. You make it seem like she's asking the world...
cash checks = no
drive = maybe
buy cigarettes = no
funny thing is, two of those things require identification. check cashing for fraud purposes, and cigarette buying due to age restrictions. in both those cases, if the person on the other side of the transaction can't positively ID her they can face either fines/liability for passing bad checks, or jail time for selling cigarettes to kids.
driving is less likely to be a problem, but the picture ID is the beginning of the problems that can arise.
The point is, she IS allowing her face to be photographed. The only part of her face a male police officer will see, anyway. I guarantee that if she got pulled over and she were asked to uncover her face for a male police officer, she'd rather be arrested. Then, at the station, she'd show her face to a woman police officer. That's the problem with this: there's no way of her controlling who would see that photo. If she could be given assurances that only women would see it, she'd have no argument. But she's not given that guarantee. That's the key point. She's not doing it to be obstinate, she's doing it because she believes that men should not see her face. If we can't at least grant her that right, I don't know what's wrong with our legal system.
the first 29 years of her life it was no problem for her to show her face to anyone she didn't know.
Where in the quran (or bible, or any religious book) does it say that you can not have your photo taken for your drivers licence? i want a quote.
Who said she wouldn't have her photo taken? She won't take the veil off.
If you really care (which I doubt):
Chapter 24, verses 30-31.
Quote:
Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty...And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and adornments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers...
But we're not talking about the justification from a religious standpoint. We're talking about it from legal one.
edit: keep in mind that this is open to interpretation and certain schools of thought are more liberal (or conservative) than others. Let's not be arrogant enough to try to dissect the meaning of these verses. Leave that to religious scholars.
she most definitely should be allowed to wear the veil. the only mark i think that could go against her, is if driving is inherently against islam or something. but even then i think she has the right to pick and choose which parts of the religion she obeys.
*States are now also bound by this amendment.
She's certainly allowed to wear the veil, however it's not the religion being prohibited here, just the issuance of a license to a person who has no face and therefore cannot be identified.
If my religion allowed me to cut off your face and eat it...yeah...I think the police would rightfully stop me from doing that.
Yeah, and for the first 24 years of my life, I thought Macs sucked. I changed my mind and so did she. That's still allowed, isn't it?
changing the mind is allowed, for sure. untill a few years ago, i thought the US sucked and i never wanted to live there, and now look where i am...
it is just so funny (ridiculous, pathetic, sad etc) how an american-born christian (some variation of it) girl can at some point become an ultra-conservative moslem. to the point when the the emigrant moslem women find no problem having htier partial face photo taken for identification purposes (e.g. covering only hair, or only part of the face), but she finds it a problem.
if the "religion" allows people to do "whatever as long as it does not hurt anyone else" i therefore start a religion that
1) makes you not pay the taxes
2) makes you not use any peecees (macs allowed) and
3) makes you buy as many cds as you can.
(no other rules determined for so far).
even with this rules, i can think finding the 7 people required by the laws to found a religion (and the rest of the holy texts can be defined together later), and so make us pass for not showing our photos on the drivers licences, or from saving us from the sales taxes or whatever purpose "that does not hurt anyone else". restricting fro sales tax does not hurt anyone else any more than not being able to be identifiable from the vehicle driving permitting licences.
Where exactly is she not meeting the same requirements for getting DL? She took the driver's test, passed the written one, and has insurance. What other requirements are there? Getting her photo made? That's also being done. The hangup is this uncovering her face. Where in the law does it say that she has to uncover her face for the photo?
Are we discussing a special accommodation for this woman, or the minutiae of Florida law? If digging into the specifics of the law reveals no actual requirement to have your face fully photographed, then no one would be required to have their face fully photographed. I should be able to obtain a Florida driver's license under those circumstances without a full-face photograph as well, and without having to offer up a religious reason for declining to cooperate.
We're confabulating the issue here: id versus fitness to drive. Many of us are saying that she shouldn't be allowed to drive, despite the fact she is fit to because she can't be easily id'ed.
You're making the mistake of assuming that fitness to drive is the only valid criteria for obtaining a driver's license. As has been said before, driving is a privilege, not a right. It is perfectly valid for the government to attach stipulations above and beyond fitness to drive that must be met in order to be granted the privilege of driving.
If a stipulation is unreasonable or invalid, then it should not apply to anyone, and again, religion wouldn't have to enter into it.
Don't be hard headed. Everyone knows (and I stated) that when someone else is harmed, rights end (in a simplistic way of looking at it). There is no way anyone could prove direct harm - or indirect for that matter - resulting from her right to wear a veil.
As long as I'll try not to be hard-headed for you, please do me a favor and stop repeating over and over that we're talking about taking away this woman's right to wear a veil. SHE HAS THE RIGHT TO WEAR A VEIL -- NO ARGUMENT THERE. My point is that her choice to follow a religion with certain restrictions has self-imposed consequences, and that she has a responsibility to face those consequences.
And? They're a convenience plain and simple. Handicap entrances are also costly, but required. Just because they cost money and require some work doesn't mean they shouldn't be required.
Special accommodations for the handicapped are a matter of law, not of constitutional rights. (Maybe some state somewhere has put that into their state constitution -- I wouldn't know.) If you can get an electoral or legislative majority to vote against a requirement for full-face photo IDs, go for it. It's still not a matter of constitutional rights.
It's a choice that people are free to make in this country. Or at least were free to make. Now we're more than willing to force people to give up RIGHTS under the guise of Nat'l Security.
Please refer back to my ALL CAPS above.
We're just going to have to disagree on this one. Except that I've not seen anyone to show me where a picture of a full face is law for identification purposes. I'm still waiting on that. Keep in mind that I'm not against id'ing people. I just want to know where it says that a picture id is the only way to do it.
Again, if there is really no such requirement in the law, then there is no such requirement for anyone, not just this woman or anyone else with a religious issues about photographs and face-showing.
Slight of hand here. You're changing the subject again. The only way for a person to become president in this case would be a change of the law. There's no two ways about this one. It's unequivocal.
So, are you saying that if an examination of the relevant Florida law does indeed demonstrate that current law demands a useful photo ID in order to get a driver's license, that you agree that the woman now has a tough choice: exercise her right to wear a veil OR get a driver's license, but not both?
Are you also saying that if examination of the relevant Florida law reveals no requirement for a useful photo ID, that no one at all is then required to have such a picture taken? That people could wear a ski mask on a whim while having an ID picture taken?
Keep in mind that if the specific law requires a photo ID, even if the law doesn't clearly say "full-face" photo ID, that it's well within the purview of the courts to interpret the meaning here. It is more than obvious that laws requiring photo IDs do so for the purpose of identification, not just for creating some silly ritual of having someone submit to sitting in front of a camera to no good end.
However, there are other - and more effective - ways of id'ing people. And it's not law. Again.
If there are better ways, fine, maybe some day we, directly or through our legislators, will vote in new ID systems. We are certainly not, however, constitutionally obligated to do so. Through law, we as a society have decided to reach out and make special accommodations for the handicapped. If we want to (and I doubt many of would us want to), we can decide to accommodate people who want to hide their faces.
You think that her life is going to get easier even if she gets this veil thing through the courts? I'd guess she's fully willing to make trade-offs and she has already, no doubt. She's never going to fly a plane dressed like that. She'll never ride a bike or go swimming at the beach. Choices lead to trade-offs. She's not asking for a beach closed off just for women so she can go swimming.
So, what do you want? A system by which we decide whether a person has suffered enough from self-imposed trade-offs, and when they reach some limit, we're legally and constitutionally obligated to cut them some slack?
The woman has a personal responsibility to cope with each and every consequence of her personal religious choices. If by law, we wanted to make life easier for her by eliminating any requirements for full-face photo IDs, we could do so, but we're under no constitutional obligation to do so.
She's asking for her right to conceal her face and still be accorded the ability to do things like cash checks, drive, buy cigarettes, etc. You make it seem like she's asking the world...
I don't care if she asking for the world, or just for an acre of swamp land in Florida. If the law does indeed require full-face photo IDs from everyone, she is then asking for a special exemption based on her self-imposed religious choices, and I see no constitutional grounds why she must be accommodated.
If she can't get a valid driver's license, or other state-issued photo ID because she won't remove her veil, and subsequently she then has problems cashing checks or buying cigarettes in addition to not being able to drive, then, quite frankly, that's her tough luck, her self-imposed burden which she has a responsibility to accept.
I don't care if she asking for the world, or just for an acre of swamp land in Florida. If the law does indeed require full-face photo IDs from everyone, she is then asking for a special exemption based on her self-imposed religious choices, and I see no constitutional grounds why she must be accommodated.
if the law requires that a person go against their religion in order to earn some privilege granted by the state, then that law, i think, is unconstitutional.
Quote:
From the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (with parenthesis added by me, accounting for a later amendment)
Congress (also the States) shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
A law requiring a person to disrespect their religous beliefs is "prohibiting the free exercise" of that religion. The driver's license law should be interpretted to grant access for people who aren't, by their religious beliefs, allowed to show their full face. Furthermore, if other's don't want to show their face, they should be allowed that option as well, as we all should be given equal rights.
my friend last night had the best suggestion. she gets two licenses. one with her in her veil to be shown to male police officers, and one with her face to be shown to female police officers. If she is pulled by a male police officer instead of taking her to the police station, they call a female police officer and proceed from there.
The government shouldnt do anything to prevent the free practise of a religion. While there are responsibilities of taking a religion, there are also reasonable assumptions that written laws should not prevent normal livlihoods of those that take a religion. It is unfair to her in the most in this regard to demand that she not follow her religion to take part in what is a normal american activity -- driving. It is the laws problem to deal with this cultural aspect. It is status quo that Catholic priests are not arrested when they give minors alcohol, but by all laws should be. However this case is different. She is not breaking the law. She is merely trying to exercise her rights dictated by the practise of her religion and not have her faced revealed.
I am not a religious person. In fact I think that for most religions block normal rational thoughts (perhaps in this case as well), but I will defend the right to practise and all of the rights that follow from that. It has always been the laws problem to deal with constitutional issues not the person victimized by the law. If there were a law that required everyone to be tatooed with bar codes (lets say perfectly harmless tatooing), would you all support the rights of practising Jews to not be barcoded, or does public safety and the responsibility of taking that religion provide reason enough that they should be barcoded like the rest of you, lest they be given extra rights? The point is from your arguments, Jews would have to be barcoded. And that simply does not sit well with me.
if the law requires that a person go against their religion in order to earn some privilege granted by the state, then that law, i think, is unconstitutional.
That is absolutely crazy. You have to realize how many religions there are. It would only be unconstitutional if the government said "You can't have this privilige because you are such and such religion" or "You can only have this privilige because you are such and such religion." But, the government cannot be expected to specially deal with or even know everything around the personal religion choices of every individual American. Religion is a choice. That woman is choosing to wear that veil. That choice can carry consequences.
Now, the law should not be created to specifically exclude certain religions. But, this is not the case here. Everyone needs to get his or her picture taken for a driver's license. It has nothing to do with religion or racism.
If this woman is allowed to wear her veil, then anyone will be able to wear a veil...including people who only wear the veil to avoid getting their picture taken.
Quote:
Originally posted by thuh Freak
A law requiring a person to disrespect their religous beliefs is "prohibiting the free exercise" of that religion.
What if my religion says I should kill people to sacrifice them to the Sun god?
If there were a law that required everyone to be tatooed with bar codes (lets say perfectly harmless tatooing), would you all support the rights of practising Jews to not be barcoded, or does public safety and the responsibility of taking that religion provide reason enough that they should be barcoded like the rest of you, lest they be given extra rights? The point is from your arguments, Jews would have to be barcoded. And that simply does not sit well with me.
I would never let the government touch me. We are talking about a photograph to obtain a driver's license, not a government barcode tattoo. A law delcaring such would be unconstitutional.
Comments
Originally posted by alcimedes
the other problem is that people are keen on saying she should be able to wear her veil if she wants to, but i'd like to know what everyone else who requires an ID from their customers/police stops are supposed to do.
We're required to accomodate her. That's the cost of living in a free society. Her rights are more important than our convenience.
We're required to accomodate her.
no we aren't. not even close.
stop and think about that statement and what it would mean applied on a nation-wide scale for every religion in this country.
it's impossible. if nothing else, the requirements to accomodate one relgion would directly conflict with the requirements of another.
Originally posted by alcimedes
no we aren't. not even close.
stop and think about that statement and what it would mean applied on a nation-wide scale for every religion in this country.
it's impossible. if nothing else, the requirements to accomodate one relgion would directly conflict with the requirements of another.
I have thought about it and I can't come up with a scenario like you describe. I've also thought about the ramifications of deciding in a court of law that her rights can be taken away in this instance. Have you?
-t
ps - the last post on the second page may be getting skipped by some people. I'd appreciate it if it were read.
Originally posted by torifile
Doesn't anyone see where this is going? We're taking away her rights for convenience. I guess I'm the only one bothered by this...
We would not be taking away any of her rights. She has a right to wear a veil as much as she likes. While it's true that driving is a privilege, not a right, she does have a right to equal enforcement of the law, and should be able to obtain a driver's license if she meets the same requirements everyone else is expected to meet.
None of us, however, has any inherent constitutional right to be exempted from the rules others in our society have to follow.
In the extreme, this is obvious: No matter what your religion says, we aren't going to make exceptions to laws against homicide so you can carry out human sacrifices. In the cases where we have made exceptions (religious uses of otherwise illegal drugs) I see that as a "nice" thing to do, but hardly anything that the Constitution requires.
You speak of "convenience". Photo IDs are more than a mere "convenience" -- they're a fairly natural, reasonable form of ID. Not perfect, not completely irreplacable, but certainly well understood, quite entrenched, and it would be an enormous and costly national burden, not a mere inconvenience, to scrap the whole system in hopes of coming up with something that, hopefully, maybe, wouldn't conflict with someone's religion somewhere.
People keep treating religion here as if it were something you simply can't help, like race, or like a birth defect. Religion is a choice, and the repercussions of that choice are the follower's responsibility.
The government shouldn't persecute you for that choice, and it shouldn't pass laws aimed specifically at making it difficult to follow your chosen faith. But when a law exists for good, non-religious reasons, there is no government obligation to exempt people from these laws in order to facilitate and accomodate the practice of a particular religion.
Laws requiring photo IDs (useful photo IDs -- pictures of people in veils aren't useful) weren't constructed by people who had an agenda of stopping Muslim women from driving. There's nothing discriminatory about such laws.
If my religion requires all members to enter an isolated, monastic life at age 30, does the government have to allow members of my religion become President as young as 22, 13 years earlier than anyone else, so that it's possible for members of my religion to serve two full terms as President, without giving up their religious duty to monasticism?
Or at some point, do people become (gasp!) responsible for the choices they make in life, and for accepting tradeoffs due to those choices?
Well said, shetline.
Originally posted by shetline
We would not be taking away any of her rights. She has a right to wear a veil as much as she likes. While it's true that driving is a privilege, not a right, she does have a right to equal enforcement of the law, and should be able to obtain a driver's license if she meets the same requirements everyone else is expected to meet.
Where exactly is she not meeting the same requirements for getting DL? She took the driver's test, passed the written one, and has insurance. What other requirements are there? Getting her photo made? That's also being done. The hangup is this uncovering her face. Where in the law does it say that she has to uncover her face for the photo? We're confabulating the issue here: id versus fitness to drive. Many of us are saying that she shouldn't be allowed to drive, despite the fact she is fit to because she can't be easily id'ed.
In the extreme, this is obvious: No matter what your religion says, we aren't going to make exceptions to laws against homicide so you can carry out human sacrifices. In the cases where we have made exceptions (religious uses of otherwise illegal drugs) I see that as a "nice" thing to do, but hardly anything that the Constitution requires.
Don't be hard headed. Everyone knows (and I stated) that when someone else is harmed, rights end (in a simplistic way of looking at it). There is no way anyone could prove direct harm - or indirect for that matter - resulting from her right to wear a veil. I'm not talking about these hypothetical religions that require murder or drug use or stealing.
You speak of "convenience". Photo IDs are more than a mere "convenience" -- they're a fairly natural, reasonable form of ID. Not perfect, not completely irreplacable, but certainly well understood, quite entrenched, and it would be an enormous and costly national burden, not a mere inconvenience, to scrap the whole system in hopes of coming up with something that, hopefully, maybe, wouldn't conflict with someone's religion somewhere.
And? They're a convenience plain and simple. Handicap entrances are also costly, but required. Just because they cost money and require some work doesn't mean they shouldn't be required.
People keep treating religion here as if it were something you simply can't help, like race, or like a birth defect. Religion is a choice, and the repercussions of that choice are the follower's responsibility.
It's a choice that people are free to make in this country. Or at least were free to make. Now we're more than willing to force people to give up RIGHTS under the guise of Nat'l Security.
The government shouldn't persecute you for that choice, and it shouldn't pass laws aimed specifically at making it difficult to follow your chosen faith. But when a law exists for good, non-religious reasons, there is no government obligation to exempt people from these laws in order to facilitate and accomodate the practice of a particular religion.
Laws requiring photo IDs (useful photo IDs -- pictures of people in veils aren't useful) weren't constructed by people who had an agenda of stopping Muslim women from driving. There's nothing discriminatory about such laws.
We're just going to have to disagree on this one. Except that I've not seen anyone to show me where a picture of a full face is law for identification purposes. I'm still waiting on that. Keep in mind that I'm not against id'ing people. I just want to know where it says that a picture id is the only way to do it.
If my religion requires all members to enter an isolated, monastic life at age 30, does the government have to allow members of my religion become President as young as 22, 13 years earlier than anyone else, so that it's possible for members of my religion to serve two full terms as President, without giving up their religious duty to monasticism?
Slight of hand here. You're changing the subject again. The only way for a person to become president in this case would be a change of the law. There's no two ways about this one. It's unequivocal. However, there are other - and more effective - ways of id'ing people. And it's not law. Again.
Or at some point, do people become (gasp!) responsible for the choices they make in life, and for accepting tradeoffs due to those choices?
You think that her life is going to get easier even if she gets this veil thing through the courts? I'd guess she's fully willing to make trade-offs and she has already, no doubt. She's never going to fly a plane dressed like that. She'll never ride a bike or go swimming at the beach. Choices lead to trade-offs. She's not asking for a beach closed off just for women so she can go swimming. She's asking for her right to conceal her face and still be accorded the ability to do things like cash checks, drive, buy cigarettes, etc. You make it seem like she's asking the world...
Thanks for the reasoned response though. Good food for thought...
She's asking for her right to conceal her face and still be accorded the ability to do things like cash checks, drive, buy cigarettes, etc. You make it seem like she's asking the world...
cash checks = no
drive = maybe
buy cigarettes = no
funny thing is, two of those things require identification. check cashing for fraud purposes, and cigarette buying due to age restrictions. in both those cases, if the person on the other side of the transaction can't positively ID her they can face either fines/liability for passing bad checks, or jail time for selling cigarettes to kids.
driving is less likely to be a problem, but the picture ID is the beginning of the problems that can arise.
Originally posted by torifile
Where in the law books does it say that you have to have your photo on your driver's license? I want a quote.
Where in the quran (or bible, or any religious book) does it say that you can not have your photo taken for your drivers licence? i want a quote.
Originally posted by torifile
The point is, she IS allowing her face to be photographed. The only part of her face a male police officer will see, anyway. I guarantee that if she got pulled over and she were asked to uncover her face for a male police officer, she'd rather be arrested. Then, at the station, she'd show her face to a woman police officer. That's the problem with this: there's no way of her controlling who would see that photo. If she could be given assurances that only women would see it, she'd have no argument. But she's not given that guarantee. That's the key point. She's not doing it to be obstinate, she's doing it because she believes that men should not see her face. If we can't at least grant her that right, I don't know what's wrong with our legal system.
the first 29 years of her life it was no problem for her to show her face to anyone she didn't know.
Originally posted by Giaguara
Where in the quran (or bible, or any religious book) does it say that you can not have your photo taken for your drivers licence? i want a quote.
Who said she wouldn't have her photo taken? She won't take the veil off.
If you really care (which I doubt):
Chapter 24, verses 30-31.
Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty...And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and adornments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers...
But we're not talking about the justification from a religious standpoint. We're talking about it from legal one.
edit: keep in mind that this is open to interpretation and certain schools of thought are more liberal (or conservative) than others. Let's not be arrogant enough to try to dissect the meaning of these verses. Leave that to religious scholars.
Originally posted by Giaguara
the first 29 years of her life it was no problem for her to show her face to anyone she didn't know.
Yeah, and for the first 24 years of my life, I thought Macs sucked. I changed my mind and so did she. That's still allowed, isn't it?
Originally posted by thuh Freak
she most definitely should be allowed to wear the veil. the only mark i think that could go against her, is if driving is inherently against islam or something. but even then i think she has the right to pick and choose which parts of the religion she obeys.
*States are now also bound by this amendment.
She's certainly allowed to wear the veil, however it's not the religion being prohibited here, just the issuance of a license to a person who has no face and therefore cannot be identified.
If my religion allowed me to cut off your face and eat it...yeah...I think the police would rightfully stop me from doing that.
Originally posted by torifile
Yeah, and for the first 24 years of my life, I thought Macs sucked. I changed my mind and so did she. That's still allowed, isn't it?
changing the mind is allowed, for sure. untill a few years ago, i thought the US sucked and i never wanted to live there, and now look where i am...
it is just so funny (ridiculous, pathetic, sad etc) how an american-born christian (some variation of it) girl can at some point become an ultra-conservative moslem. to the point when the the emigrant moslem women find no problem having htier partial face photo taken for identification purposes (e.g. covering only hair, or only part of the face), but she finds it a problem.
1) makes you not pay the taxes
2) makes you not use any peecees (macs allowed) and
3) makes you buy as many cds as you can.
(no other rules determined for so far).
even with this rules, i can think finding the 7 people required by the laws to found a religion (and the rest of the holy texts can be defined together later), and so make us pass for not showing our photos on the drivers licences, or from saving us from the sales taxes or whatever purpose "that does not hurt anyone else". restricting fro sales tax does not hurt anyone else any more than not being able to be identifiable from the vehicle driving permitting licences.
Originally posted by torifile
Where exactly is she not meeting the same requirements for getting DL? She took the driver's test, passed the written one, and has insurance. What other requirements are there? Getting her photo made? That's also being done. The hangup is this uncovering her face. Where in the law does it say that she has to uncover her face for the photo?
Are we discussing a special accommodation for this woman, or the minutiae of Florida law? If digging into the specifics of the law reveals no actual requirement to have your face fully photographed, then no one would be required to have their face fully photographed. I should be able to obtain a Florida driver's license under those circumstances without a full-face photograph as well, and without having to offer up a religious reason for declining to cooperate.
We're confabulating the issue here: id versus fitness to drive. Many of us are saying that she shouldn't be allowed to drive, despite the fact she is fit to because she can't be easily id'ed.
You're making the mistake of assuming that fitness to drive is the only valid criteria for obtaining a driver's license. As has been said before, driving is a privilege, not a right. It is perfectly valid for the government to attach stipulations above and beyond fitness to drive that must be met in order to be granted the privilege of driving.
If a stipulation is unreasonable or invalid, then it should not apply to anyone, and again, religion wouldn't have to enter into it.
Don't be hard headed. Everyone knows (and I stated) that when someone else is harmed, rights end (in a simplistic way of looking at it). There is no way anyone could prove direct harm - or indirect for that matter - resulting from her right to wear a veil.
As long as I'll try not to be hard-headed for you, please do me a favor and stop repeating over and over that we're talking about taking away this woman's right to wear a veil. SHE HAS THE RIGHT TO WEAR A VEIL -- NO ARGUMENT THERE. My point is that her choice to follow a religion with certain restrictions has self-imposed consequences, and that she has a responsibility to face those consequences.
And? They're a convenience plain and simple. Handicap entrances are also costly, but required. Just because they cost money and require some work doesn't mean they shouldn't be required.
Special accommodations for the handicapped are a matter of law, not of constitutional rights. (Maybe some state somewhere has put that into their state constitution -- I wouldn't know.) If you can get an electoral or legislative majority to vote against a requirement for full-face photo IDs, go for it. It's still not a matter of constitutional rights.
It's a choice that people are free to make in this country. Or at least were free to make. Now we're more than willing to force people to give up RIGHTS under the guise of Nat'l Security.
Please refer back to my ALL CAPS above.
We're just going to have to disagree on this one. Except that I've not seen anyone to show me where a picture of a full face is law for identification purposes. I'm still waiting on that. Keep in mind that I'm not against id'ing people. I just want to know where it says that a picture id is the only way to do it.
Again, if there is really no such requirement in the law, then there is no such requirement for anyone, not just this woman or anyone else with a religious issues about photographs and face-showing.
Slight of hand here. You're changing the subject again. The only way for a person to become president in this case would be a change of the law. There's no two ways about this one. It's unequivocal.
So, are you saying that if an examination of the relevant Florida law does indeed demonstrate that current law demands a useful photo ID in order to get a driver's license, that you agree that the woman now has a tough choice: exercise her right to wear a veil OR get a driver's license, but not both?
Are you also saying that if examination of the relevant Florida law reveals no requirement for a useful photo ID, that no one at all is then required to have such a picture taken? That people could wear a ski mask on a whim while having an ID picture taken?
Keep in mind that if the specific law requires a photo ID, even if the law doesn't clearly say "full-face" photo ID, that it's well within the purview of the courts to interpret the meaning here. It is more than obvious that laws requiring photo IDs do so for the purpose of identification, not just for creating some silly ritual of having someone submit to sitting in front of a camera to no good end.
However, there are other - and more effective - ways of id'ing people. And it's not law. Again.
If there are better ways, fine, maybe some day we, directly or through our legislators, will vote in new ID systems. We are certainly not, however, constitutionally obligated to do so. Through law, we as a society have decided to reach out and make special accommodations for the handicapped. If we want to (and I doubt many of would us want to), we can decide to accommodate people who want to hide their faces.
You think that her life is going to get easier even if she gets this veil thing through the courts? I'd guess she's fully willing to make trade-offs and she has already, no doubt. She's never going to fly a plane dressed like that. She'll never ride a bike or go swimming at the beach. Choices lead to trade-offs. She's not asking for a beach closed off just for women so she can go swimming.
So, what do you want? A system by which we decide whether a person has suffered enough from self-imposed trade-offs, and when they reach some limit, we're legally and constitutionally obligated to cut them some slack?
The woman has a personal responsibility to cope with each and every consequence of her personal religious choices. If by law, we wanted to make life easier for her by eliminating any requirements for full-face photo IDs, we could do so, but we're under no constitutional obligation to do so.
She's asking for her right to conceal her face and still be accorded the ability to do things like cash checks, drive, buy cigarettes, etc. You make it seem like she's asking the world...
I don't care if she asking for the world, or just for an acre of swamp land in Florida. If the law does indeed require full-face photo IDs from everyone, she is then asking for a special exemption based on her self-imposed religious choices, and I see no constitutional grounds why she must be accommodated.
If she can't get a valid driver's license, or other state-issued photo ID because she won't remove her veil, and subsequently she then has problems cashing checks or buying cigarettes in addition to not being able to drive, then, quite frankly, that's her tough luck, her self-imposed burden which she has a responsibility to accept.
Originally posted by shetline
I don't care if she asking for the world, or just for an acre of swamp land in Florida. If the law does indeed require full-face photo IDs from everyone, she is then asking for a special exemption based on her self-imposed religious choices, and I see no constitutional grounds why she must be accommodated.
if the law requires that a person go against their religion in order to earn some privilege granted by the state, then that law, i think, is unconstitutional.
From the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (with parenthesis added by me, accounting for a later amendment)
Congress (also the States) shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
A law requiring a person to disrespect their religous beliefs is "prohibiting the free exercise" of that religion. The driver's license law should be interpretted to grant access for people who aren't, by their religious beliefs, allowed to show their full face. Furthermore, if other's don't want to show their face, they should be allowed that option as well, as we all should be given equal rights.
The government shouldnt do anything to prevent the free practise of a religion. While there are responsibilities of taking a religion, there are also reasonable assumptions that written laws should not prevent normal livlihoods of those that take a religion. It is unfair to her in the most in this regard to demand that she not follow her religion to take part in what is a normal american activity -- driving. It is the laws problem to deal with this cultural aspect. It is status quo that Catholic priests are not arrested when they give minors alcohol, but by all laws should be. However this case is different. She is not breaking the law. She is merely trying to exercise her rights dictated by the practise of her religion and not have her faced revealed.
I am not a religious person. In fact I think that for most religions block normal rational thoughts (perhaps in this case as well), but I will defend the right to practise and all of the rights that follow from that. It has always been the laws problem to deal with constitutional issues not the person victimized by the law. If there were a law that required everyone to be tatooed with bar codes (lets say perfectly harmless tatooing), would you all support the rights of practising Jews to not be barcoded, or does public safety and the responsibility of taking that religion provide reason enough that they should be barcoded like the rest of you, lest they be given extra rights? The point is from your arguments, Jews would have to be barcoded. And that simply does not sit well with me.
Originally posted by thuh Freak
if the law requires that a person go against their religion in order to earn some privilege granted by the state, then that law, i think, is unconstitutional.
That is absolutely crazy. You have to realize how many religions there are. It would only be unconstitutional if the government said "You can't have this privilige because you are such and such religion" or "You can only have this privilige because you are such and such religion." But, the government cannot be expected to specially deal with or even know everything around the personal religion choices of every individual American. Religion is a choice. That woman is choosing to wear that veil. That choice can carry consequences.
Now, the law should not be created to specifically exclude certain religions. But, this is not the case here. Everyone needs to get his or her picture taken for a driver's license. It has nothing to do with religion or racism.
If this woman is allowed to wear her veil, then anyone will be able to wear a veil...including people who only wear the veil to avoid getting their picture taken.
Originally posted by thuh Freak
A law requiring a person to disrespect their religous beliefs is "prohibiting the free exercise" of that religion.
What if my religion says I should kill people to sacrifice them to the Sun god?
Originally posted by billybobsky
If there were a law that required everyone to be tatooed with bar codes (lets say perfectly harmless tatooing), would you all support the rights of practising Jews to not be barcoded, or does public safety and the responsibility of taking that religion provide reason enough that they should be barcoded like the rest of you, lest they be given extra rights? The point is from your arguments, Jews would have to be barcoded. And that simply does not sit well with me.
I would never let the government touch me. We are talking about a photograph to obtain a driver's license, not a government barcode tattoo. A law delcaring such would be unconstitutional.