Amish sues over photo ID

Lately, Americans have argued both about their right to bear arms and whether the free exercise of religion allows businesses and state officials to claim exemptions from requirements that conflict with their religious beliefs. It’s not everyday, however, that the two issues, guns and religion, wind up together in a single case.

In a suit that brings together the Second Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), an Amish man filed a federal lawsuit in Pennsylvania last week because he wants to buy a gun without the required photo ID — and because getting that photo ID would violate his religious beliefs.

Andrew Hertzler, according to the suit, is from Lancaster County, Pa., and is an “active and practicing” member of the community; his “parents, grandparents, and siblings are all active and practicing Amish”; and he “has a sincerely held religious belief that prevents him from knowingly and willingly having his photograph taken and stored.”

“The Amish faith prohibits an individual from having his/her photograph taken,” the suit read. “This belief stems from the Biblical passage Exodus 20:4, which mandates that ‘You shall not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,’ as well as the Christian belief in humility.”

But Hertzler’s humility caused a problem when, in June, he tried to buy a gun from a Pennsylvania dealer “using a nonphoto, state-issued identification.” This wasn’t enough, according to the dealer — Hertzler was told he needed a picture ID.

So Hertzler took it up with his senator. Alas, though Republican Sen. Pat Toomey forwarded Hertzler’s response to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, he could not help his constituent.

“As the enclosed response [from the ATF] states, federal firearm laws require photo identification when purchasing a firearm,” Toomey wrote. “There are no exceptions to this federal requirement.”

Hertzler was caught in a Catch-22: To enjoy his rights under the Second Amendment, he would have to violate his faith — or vice versa. It could not stand.

“Mr. Hertzler confronts Hobson’s choice: either forgo his constitutional right to keep and bear arms in defense of himself and his home, or violate his religion,” the suit read. Yet: “The exercise of one Constitutional right cannot be contingent upon the violation or waiver of another.”

“By knowingly and willingly sitting for a photograph, even for a state-issued identification document, Mr. Hertzler would be violating his religion by taking a graven image of himself,” the suit read. “Thus, Mr. Hertzler’s religious freedom has been substantially burdened — in order to exercise his fundamental right to possess a firearm for defense of himself and his home, the Government is requiring him to violate a major tenet of his sincerely held religious belief.”

It was just this outcome, Hertzler’s suit argued, that Congress sought to avoid by passing RFRA in 1993.

The Amish have been fighting for religious exemptions for decades, losing some cases and winning some, most notably a 1972 landmark in which the Supreme Court held that they could exempt themselves from compulsory education laws on religious grounds.

While the Supreme Court has not ruled on photo identification religious exemptions for such purposes as drivers’ licenses and voter ID, lower courts have generally “been willing to recognize photo identification as a compelling purpose” that outweighs religious claims, according to a Congressional Research Service study of the issue, provided the photo requirement is “applied uniformly and without exemption.”