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Spaghetti Strainer Helmet Driver's License Photo Approved On Religious Grounds (immortal.org)
PolygamousRanchKid writes with the news (widely reported, here an excerpt from the story as carried by Immortal News) that [i]n the Massachusetts city of Lowell, a woman identifying herself as a follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), otherwise known as Pastafarianism, has been approved by the state's Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to wear a spaghetti strainer on top of her head in her state issued driver's ID. The approval to wear the helmet was initially denied. However, citing religious grounds, Lowell resident Lindsay Miller filed an appeal. Following intervention by the American Humanist Association's Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the RMV reversed their decision and allowed her to put on her colander and get her driver's license picture taken. According to the church's website, while there are those who perceive the religion to be satirical in nature, it "doesn't change the fact that by any standard one can come up with" the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is "as legitimate as any other" religion.
Asks PolygamousRanchKid: "Now what about my tinfoil hat . . . ?"
If a tax evation group makes a billion and a half dollars on the idea that depression is caused by the souls of aliens tormenting the world than some crap like the spaghetti monster is not really surprising.
As long as it doesn't obstruct her face or otherwise interferes with identification, it is of course acceptable...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is a subtle but important difference between these two situations. In the OP, the religious garb does not impede identification. In your situation it very much does. The best solution available to my mind, is to have the appropriate picture taken but if identification is required later have it performed by a woman.
If the religion is sincerely held, accommodation should be made. However a DMV cannot possible evaluate the sincerity. It seems that the correct approach is to allow the photo. Later if the person gets stopped for a traffic violation and isn't wearing their spaghetti strainer, that should be grounds to investigate and charge them with fraud if it were a sham.
I don't know if making fun of a delusion is worth looking like a dork on your driver's license.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It says right in the article that religious head wear is allowed. Other types are not. The lady in the article went though an appeals process that then allowed her to wear her religious spaghetti strainer thing on her head. Sounds legit.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Now she'll have *no chance* at talking herself out of a ticket when a cop pulls her over and looks at her drivers license.
As some religions..
Plus, you never know when you're going to need to strain some spaghetti.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Drivers licenses did not always have pictures on them. We have become the enemy we once mocked.
It was our parents generation that screwed it up. They abused the pictureless licenses, passing them amongst friends and faking them. So when they got in power, they changed the rules and laws to what we have today. The hippies grew up into fascists, and blamed their children for their actions.
Learn to love Alaska
Wanting to make fun of other people's religions and laugh at them for being superstitious is one thing, and not wanting to have intelligent design taught in schools is fine, but then turning around and calling that whole idea a religion of its own that deserves to be taken seriously by society seems nothing less than self-defeating.
You're not getting it. This case (the colander on the head) is pointing out the absurdity of "god makes me wear this" headware generally, and of state-government-level capricious laws/policies with respect to it in particular.
The only way to point out how ridiculous religion is, is to do something just as ridiculous, and force the government to treat it with the same level of credulity and absurd dignity. So this is just a case of the same tools (satire generally, and the FSM's teachings in particular) to point out another area of nonsense, separate from the intelligent design masterstroke with which it all started.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Later if the person gets stopped for a traffic violation and isn't wearing their spaghetti strainer, that should be grounds to investigate and charge them with fraud if it were a sham.
And why is this? Why should the DMV care, why should the police be on the lookout for this, and why should society embroil someone's life in the legal system over something that has no effect on anyone, whatsoever?
People seem to think that we need to uphold some sort of justice against the *intent* of some rule or another(*).
Why bother? Can't we just let little things go?
(*) The one that comes to mind first is the "If you can't be bothered to vote, you can't comment on the voting proceedings", but there are others. People seem caught up in enforcing some sort of "just universe", and take it to absurd extremes.
One covers the face, preventing identification, the other does not.
Learn to love Alaska
You can drive wearing a helmet with a visor which obscured visibility of your face, and many people (like racing drivers) do just that...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
As with most things not amenable to being hammered out in syllogism, it's a trifle fuzzy around the edges; but the basic outline(which I think we owe to Locke and derivatives heavily influenced by him) that 'if there is a suitably compelling interest behind some requirement, like making 'IDs' that actually identify, the fact that your objections are religious is irrelevant; but if the requirement is imposed to inconvenience some unpopular sect, without compelling interest, or with compelling interest that could be achieved by some less inconvenient means, then it's effectively just harassment with a greater or lesser degree of dishonesty.' has always seemed pretty compelling to me.
The 'not easy' part isn't so much in the theory, as in the myriad ways people can come up with to develop 'suitably compelling interests' that just so happen to rub sects they dislike the wrong way.
Where available, chronology clues are always useful: if the policy was in place before the people who feel excessively burdened by it were even a matter of much thought among the policymakers; it is substantially less likely that the policy was devised primarily to harass them. It might still be possible to amend it to suit people better without harming the interest it was put in place to achieve; but that's a good sign that it was imposed with some non-sectarian objective in mind.
If, by contrast, the arrival of some new and controversial sect prompts an...unrelated...interest in achieving some purportedly non-sectarian goal that just happens to ruin the new guy's day springs up; you should probably look more carefully at the idea.
(By way of example, 'making photo-IDs that are actually useful' is a fairly obvious matter of state interest, and dates back about as far as the techological viability of taking and reproducing photographs at acceptable cost; which makes the idea that it was concocted as a scheme to outrage modesty and crack down on assorted religions' preferred funny hats difficult to take seriously. There is a strong argument to be made that, given the easy and pervasive use of haircuts and dye jobs to change the appearance of hair, there isn't any good reason to crack down on headscarves, colanders, etc. while allowing people with dyed and styled hair to go about their business; either hair isn't a core ID feature, or you should be putting greater effort into worrying about any way of concealing or modifying it. By contrast, when people with no prior interest in slaughterhouse standards start freaking out about the chilling barbarism of kosher or halal butchery, it's worth a raised eyebrow. Such practices may well be incompatible with acceptable standards of animal welfare; but if you didn't care about any of the delightful things done in meatpacking plants because they are the cheapest, fastest, methods; some skepticism is in order when you develop a sudden interest in the subject.)
Stupid ideas should be attacked. Reason should always win over insanity.
http://www.americasfreedomfigh...
Quit your whining, we already have religious freedom for real religions. This is about religious freedom for satirical fake religions.
What the FUCK are you talking about?
Could you please provide any kind of model where a license of any kind works where it is impossible to find out whether a person holding said license is the rightful holder of it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are two reasons. Because if you commit fraud, you should be prosecuted for fraud. That's pretty easy to understand.
And here I thought we prosecuted fraud because of the damage it does to others.
You can't sue someone unless you can show damages. Shouldn't the legal system work the same way?
Are we to completely circumscribe behaviour now, prosecuting things that have no effect on others whatsoever, based on a petty definition?
This is just another thinly veiled attack on Christianity and other religions. As a Christian I find this offensive, but I expect no one cares since I'm also a white male.
And a great many people find Christianity and other religions offensive, and consider them to be a thinly veiled attack on rationality. The great thing about society in the more enlightened parts of the world is that we have these things called freedoms, which protect our rights to do, say and believe things which others may find offensive.
As a corollary of this while anyone can consider something to be offensive, NO ONE should have the right to demand that other people do not offend them. As a christian you ought be particulary willing to defend this freedom; particularly given the persecution those of your religion face in some parts of the world.
How does this get referred to as an atheist symbol?? I have read about the Pastafarianism religion enough to understand that it is NOT atheistic. It does believe in a higher power, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a god by any other name.
Atheist means a belief that there is NO god, not a belief in a god that happens to be different from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic one.
Is that anything like the multitude of thinly veiled attacks by Christians on pretty much everyone else? The "war on Christmas" is the first thing that comes to mind, somehow celebrating the time of year without including numerous references to Christianity draws the ire of their fundamentalist branch. Despite of course the fact that this time of year historically speaking has nothing to do with Christianity, beyond the attempt by the church to bolster their numbers hundreds of years ago by absorbing the winter solstice celebrations of pagan Europe. Constantly trying to attach religion to various government institutions ("In God we Trust" on money, "10 Commandments" in Courthouses, etc).
Nope... no veil at all.
No, it is not. It is actually a very clever way to highlight the importance of the separation between church and state.
The very first part of the First Amendment is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" and, making explicit exceptions for religious attire in legislation breaks not only the spirit but also the letter of that text.
Making an exception in the law for religious reasons (like in this case, no head gear except for religious reasons) undermine that very principle and opens the door for other kinds of abuse and, in the future, even in the establishment of a state endorsed religion, one that may not even be the one you profess if you think about it.
This photos shows how absurd the world is getting. Religion has to bend over the law, not the other way around. It the law says "no hat", it should be no hat, and fuck religious zealots that want to have their hat of the photo.
If sate laws and your religion laws are incompatible, then forget about your religion laws, they just don't apply.There are many religions - all of them incompatible, and pretty irrational to say the least -, whereas there is only one state law at a given place, and in many decent countries it gets decided by collective discussion. So the state law always applies while the religious laws are just a pile of bullshit.
Sadly, people that are not OK with that are bombing Paris, and our response is to make more space for religious bullshit. At some point, it has to be enough. Religions have to get the fuck off politics. You are free to believe whatever bullshit you want, to do whatever fucking dumb rituals you like, but it has to have no impact whatsoever on society. Simple, reasonable, and safe for everybody.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Butthurt christian detected!
If you are offended by a woman wearing a spaghetti strainer on her head, perhaps you should critically examine some of your own beliefs and whether your religion really offers a compelling source of information about the mysteries of the world.
I suspect that most pastafarians don't wear their colanders in day-to-day life, just for official photographs.
"The pasta strainer is obviously an atheist symbol."
Everybody is an atheist.
Since Sumerian times, people have invented 2780 gods, you don't believe in 2779 of them while others don't believe in 1 more.
Former porn star Asia Lemon (aka Asia Carrera) did this in Utah back in 2014.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It's not "impossible" and that is how it was done for decades. The question may not be fully settled yet.
Amish challenge photo i.d. requirement for gun purchases
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Study: Packages Sealed with ‘Atheist’ Tape 10 Times More Likely to Disappear http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/...
Gun license has no such requirement, since it is opposed by the NRA.
http://www.in.gov/isp/images/N...
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
This is just another thinly veiled attack on Christianity and other religions. As a Christian I find this offensive, but I expect no one cares since I'm also a white male.
I care very much and I say; FUCK YOU! You have no right to not be offended.
Your position indicates that you regard Christianity and the only allowable or acceptable religion. That it should be some right that no one else offend you and your selfish beliefs. Fuck you!
No one mentioned Christianity, God, Jesus or you. You have no justification for being offended and you have no right to not be offended. This is a suit about a driver's license picture and a completely other religion. It had nothing at all to do with Christianity, until you chose to make it about your own self-centeredness.
Pastafarian is about mocking all religions in general. It is a belief system, and therefore a religion, whose central tenet is that the belief in omnipotent magical beings is illogical and absurd. Your resentment of Pastafarianism is as unacceptable as Muslims and their insistence that no one create images of the prophet Mohammed.
Do you think that American Indians smoking peyote, taking spirit journeys and worshiping a Great Spirit and totems is ridiculous? To the Pastafarian and atheists and agnostics, worshiping God and the totem(Jesus on the cross) is exactly the same. Exactly the same.
But, what you completely fail to understand is that you would have Pastafarianism outlawed, banned, negated, stifled while they are making absolutely no such attempts on your own bizarre primitive rituals. They are simply saying that they feel that if you get special treatment, then they should too, because your system is as absurd to them as theirs is to you.
This is my issue with all religions except possibly Buddism and Sikhism. They all try to convert or persecute non-believers, especially Christianity and Islam. It's their way or eternal damnation. Meanwhile the atheists are very reasonably saying, that's not for me and I don't think that your sky fairy should entitle you to any more than I am entitled to.
Apparently someone figured out how to bottle rationality. I'm aware of many places that are in desperate need of it, but it'd have to go by supertanker to make a dent in the problem.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
It's an attack on a special privilege only granted to religious people. If everyone could wear whatever headgear they wanted, we wouldn't be having this argument. The church of the FSM isn't making fun of your or anyone else's beliefs, it's just making sure that if the government recognizes one of them it must recognizes all of them as equally valid. That the government got no right to say that your religion is "true" so you can wear your headgear and my religion is "false" so I can't, or that you can teach your religious beliefs about the creation of the universe or the human race but I can't. I know you have faith in your religion, here's a newsflash: So does every other religious person. Maybe you as a person can dismiss everyone else's beliefs. But as a society with freedom of religion, it can't. Even when they don't comply with your ideas of what a religious conviction should look like.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Since it is apparently possible, please enlighten me how I should find out whether a license you present to me is actually yours and not that of your dad or some random stranger and you just found it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oddly enough, "real religions" and "satirical fake religions" are equally valid, not only in the eye's of the legal system, but in their "truth."
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
A picture is not adequate identification. Next step will be a DNA sample.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Lesbin equipment I understand - vibrators, strap-ons and stuff like that. But atheist equipment?
I didn't miss what wasn't there.
As far as the colander headgear from the main story, yes, it's absurd.... which is the intentional meaning (the absurdity) of it by the person wearing it. It's certainly no more absurd than the trappings and dogma of most religions, who do not have those trappings and dogma because they're absurd, but because they live in some warped fantasy land where reality never enters.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Because it is in your possession, how else?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
You might want to actually read history beyond a decade or two. When Social Security numbers were created they explicitly placed requirements (virtually ignored) making it illegal to use for unique ID for citizens. Some of these requirements have quietly been removed in the name of "fighting terrorism". Virtually every attempt at the federal level to openly create a national ID card has been crushed. If you want to go really far back several of the Founding fathers and influential authors made pushes for independence via pen names (Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, John Adams).
Is a burka -- which objectively speaking prevents identification of the wearer -- in conflict with the legitimate interest of identifying drivers for the sake of accountability?
Yes, and people should not be allowed to drive, if they will not remove the burka to have their picture taken, And remove the burka while operating a motor vehicle.
Does that conflict override the tenet of religious freedom?
No it does not, because you are free to not drive. This might limit your options and choices in other areas (For example.... taking on certain jobs and living in certain places might be out of reach without driving), however, you have the religious freedom.
You're not getting it. This case (the colander on the head) is pointing out the absurdity of "god makes me wear this" headware generally.
Dude, if no one thought "god wants me to cut off the end of my dick" was absurd, this one won't even get noticed.
My first one looked like I had a beard - I didn't back then, it's was just really bad lighting at the DMV. (And one of my recent DLs said I needed to be wearing glasses - I don't need them for distance, and didn't use them for the eye test, but I put them back on to read the forms.)
What you really need as a driver's license photo is one that shows you looking like you're extremely tired and someone's shining a flashlight in your face, because that's how a cop will really see you. If that includes wearing a colander on your head, then go for it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No, no. Your "equipment" was "bottled rationality". The implication being that atheists are necessarily rational; should any such equipment exist, bottled rationality would be standard issue. The absurdity being that we're clearly dealing with an irrational atheist, which undermines your implication.
Though the implication is absurd on it's face. Atheists are, I shouldn't need to point out, no more or less rational than theists. It's simply a delusion held by a minority of atheists. The one's who "live in some warped fantasy land where reality never enters." You'll find no shortage of those irrational or laughably delusional atheists at the forefront of modern atheism, just as you find no shortage among popular/media savvy religious figures. This is simply reality.
Required reading for internet skeptics
I'm a Christian, and Pastafarianism is mocking aspects of people who share my general corner of the religious world, and I'm just fine with that. Not only do some of my fellow believers sometimes act in ways that deserve mocking, we often do it ourselves (at least friendly mocking.) And more importantly, by doing things like this, Pastafarians are protecting other minority religious beliefs and practices. The US Army still hasn't quite figured out how to cope with Sikhs wearing turbans (and sometimes they even have trouble with Orthodox Jews, even army chaplains, because they violate critical military doctrines about gentlemen not wearing hats indoors), the TSA harassed them because they're different even before they decided to start harassing other hat-wearers, schools don't let students wear head-scarves (or mini-skirts) because that's Not How Proper American Girls Dress, Muslim-hating idiots beat up Sikhs, the list goes on.
I attended Quaker meetings for a few years, and we'd occasionally get the question about those hats the oatmeal-box guy wears. Quakerism came from England, where it's beastly cold and rainy and Anglos are prone to male pattern baldness, and moved to Pennsylvania and New England where it's also beastly cold and rainy much of the year, and many of them believed in wearing plain durable clothing instead of wearing flashy stuff to draw attention to themselves. But English social custom and legal practice was big on forcing lower-class people to acknowledge the importance of higher-class people, and taking off hats to your betters (especially government officials and nobility) was a big part of that, and Quakerism believes very radically in equality, so Quakers would often get thrown in jail for not taking off their hats around their betters. I wear hats to keep my head warm (as an Anglo who went bald early), and when my beard was longer I could pass for Orthodox if I was wearing a dark suit and a hat.
Back when the TSA were new, they didn't make people take off hats or coats in security lines, but out here at San Jose airport, the main people who wore them were Mexicans wearing cowboy hats heading down to Mexico, and the TSA were the white guys who'd replaced the previous mostly-immigrant screeners, and they decided to make a local rule telling the Mexicans to take their hats off. My first reaction was "if they tried this at LaGuardia the Hasidim would been in the mayor's office in an hour telling him to fire the bigot who thought up that nonsense", but as a Quaker I felt I ought to argue with them because they're clearly just doing it to bully people, and I was successful at making it difficult for them to avoid the bigotry issue for a while.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Grow up, girl, Get a cute boyfriend to hump your brains out on a regular basis and you won't feel the need to go around with a fucking pot on your head.
You do know that while sex is enjoyable and all that, it really is not the solution to all of life's problems, and not everyone you disagree with is suffering from sexual frustrations. This is not totally unlike telling a woman to "get back in the kitchen (or bedroom)", or telling a young person to "go back to the kid's table", or telling a black person to "get back out into the fields". While it might be an effective technique to belittle others, It is dismissive, petty, rude, and does little to actually advance the discussion.
While you might like to think that you can tell what everyone's sincerely held beliefs might be - you really can't. While you might like to be the arbiter of what is important and what is not important - others are going to disagree with you. Clearly in this case, this person does sincerely believe that this issue is important to them - important enough to go through all the legal necessities to get this type of ruling.
Religion has had the first mover advantage. Law has had to ask for permission of religion for its very existence. Bending over is nothing in comparison.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I am not white. I've had very similar things happen - even recently. Even very recently. Hell, I've been caught driving without my license. They just look me up, confirm my SSN, and I'm on my way. Worse, not too long ago, I drove straight across a park (it was raining and looked like a one way street) and was just let go before I even found my license.
Err... I'm a little white? I'm a mutt. The largest percentage of me is Amerindian, then comes Western European, and then some Black African. I actually look Asian or Hispanic and am kind of a chameleon. But no, I'm definitely not white looking - except in the summer when everyone else gets dark.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
There is nothing rational about religion and this is just a parody of religion. Whats rational about wearing an instrument of torture/death (crucifix) around your neck or a turban on your head or a burka etc etc
More people should have their photo taken with a colander on their head to highlight the absurdity of religious symbols.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
If you want to drive on the same road as me, go in the same supermarket as me, and ride on the same bus as me you should be as identifiable as me.
I'm an identical twin, you insensitive clod!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The point of parody is to act exactly like the object of the parody, minus the context, thereby displaying the stupidity of the object of the parody.
You don't seem to realize that it has failed to convey that message.
FSM appears to have worked beautifully as a parody of a belief in an invisible all-powerful sky-friend who has no power.
Nonsense. All it's done is to give a few attention-starved people a few minutes of fame and to make atheists, not theists, look foolish. It has had the exact opposite of it's intended effect. By any measure, it's an abject failure.
Required reading for internet skeptics
For whose benefit is this being done?
For all of humanity, which would benefit greatly from a reduction in magical thinking and especially in government endorsement of magical thinking.
The argument from the ID crowd wasn't "I believe this, so it should be taught", as Bobby Henderson seems to believe. It was "there is some legitimate scientific controversy, so it should be taught". That's wrong, but not in any way addressed by the FSM letter that started this nonsense.
The FSM letter challenged the state government to either embrace the FSM as another "legitimate" perspective or explain why the more popular mainstream religious mythology WAS "legitimate" while the FSM was not. That puts the burden squarely on the government to explain in detail their capricious embrace of one particular mythology (something they cannot do) or get out of the business of promulgating religious mythology in the science classroom, as they should. Using absurdity and satire as a tool to illustrate other absurdity is a time-honored and very effective tool. And even when that illustration fails to persuade state government officials, it still provides millions of spectators another tool to use in public discourse. It becomes cultural shorthand, just an Jonathan Swift's fictional characters and scenarios did centuries ago.
It is obviously completely unrelated to the claim it was intended to parody. You'd think that self-described rationalists wouldn't immediately abandon reason the instant something comes along that appears to support one of their positions!
Wow, you are still not getting it at all, are you. Reasonable, rational people don't REALLY believe in the FSM, just like the vast majority of people don't really believe in the fantastical claims of bronze-age desert mystics as re-interpreted by medieval propagandists. Treating the FSM as a symbol for the absurdity of organized, dogmatic magical thinking requires keeping it present in the conversation. Putting the FSM on the bumper of your car isn't meant to say that you REALLY believe there is an FSM, it's meant to show how silly it is to believe in magic in the first place.
All the FSM thing did was highlight how irrational atheists and self-described skeptics and rationalists can be.
Only if you are completely obtuse and are actively trying to miss the point of the satire. You don't think that the people who put on Saturday Night Live really believe that their fake news segment actually IS them soberly reporting the news, do you? Hmmm. Maybe you do!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Freedom of religion is fine. Nobody is preventing you from practicing/worshiping. But if you want an optional license, one of the requirements being a clear, unobstructed photograph, you now have a choice to make between your religious requirements and your desire to get that license.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The problem is that I think state law IS religious bullshit. I don't see any evidence for the proposition that state law works. It's just a tool of tyranny and control. It's just proof that we are animals on big giant farms being herded for the benefit of others. I'd rather lots of small, tiny, vulnerable, distributed bullshit systems than one big system over everybody.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
So in other words, you were talking out your bottom end and can't back it up with anything.
Got it...
Dude, you didn't provide a shred of support for your claim that police can require women to remove their niqab, either. You just said "I'm not aware of anywhere in the US where a police officer cannot ask...", but your lack of knowledge isn't evidence of anything.
Googling a bit seems to show that it's not really well-settled. I can find comments from police officers who say that they aren't sure if they could ask a woman to remove a face covering, and that they'd refer it to their supervisors, or if absolutely necessary get a female officer to handle it in a private location. I can't find anyone saying "sure, I'd tell her to take it off". After being sued by a woman who was required by a male officer to remove her hijab (which doesn't cover the face), Detroit instituted a policy that officers may not require the hijab to be removed, but that's quite different from a niqab.
There's also the story of Sultaana Freeman, who was required by a Florida judge to remove her niqab to be photographed for her DL, but with a female photographer in a private location. The question of what would be done in a traffic stop seems not to have come up, but it seems consistent with the ruling that she could not be required to remove her face covering in public or in front of a male police officer.
There are a handful of other states that have explicit policies permitting photo-less DLs for people who have religious objections to having their faces photographed.
It appears to me that this is an open question, which hasn't really come to a head yet because not many niqab-wearing women drive. When it does, though, I'd expect police to make allow reasonable allowances, which would just require getting a female officer to check the woman's identity.
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