what I find interesting is the argument of "seperation of church and state" in the first place.
Whether you agree with it or not - and people agreeing with it is what has created this myth of its existence - the "seperation of church and state," the way most people intend to mean when they mention it, does not legally exist.
The first amendment, which supposedly creates this right, simply says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
In other words, congress can't make a law saying people must adhere to one religion or another or make laws that people can't adhere to certain religious beliefs.
The term "seperation of church and state" came from a LETTER (i.e. no - that is, ZERO - legal precedent) written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in response to a rumor that they had heard that a different Christian denomination was to become the national religion.
He wrote,
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I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
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This was a direct reference to something which a Baptist preacher had said - remember, he was writing to Baptists - which was:
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When they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made his garden a wilderness, as at this day. And that there fore if He will eer please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world...
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In this, he means that there must be a seperation between the church and the state so as not to corrupt the church. In Jefferson's view - and his is the view that matters if you're going to bring the phrase "seperation of church and state" into this - the church must be protected from the state, but the state needs no protection from the church. One needn't look very far into the lives of the founding fathers to see that they felt this way - the Declaration of Independence, while not a legal document, doesn't say NATUER cerated all men equal. It says God, and that says a lot about the mindset of the people who wrote it.
America, having been founded on the heels of a situation in England where people were persecuted for not following the state religion there, was created in such a way that a LEGALLY state sponsored religion could not exist - enter the first amendment. That's not to say that a de facto state religion cannot exist, just that the state cannot make it a law so that those who are not part of the de facto standard are not persecuted outright for their beliefs.
People who do not believe in being photographed are not being persecuted because of their religion. They are simply living an unfortunate inconvenience of not being part of the de facto standard in America.
Like I said, when something comes that can reasonably replace a system such as this, we should look to it. But the "seperation of church and state" - which doesn't even exist in the way people intend it to - has nothing to do here. If you want that kind of seperation - legally - you'll have to work for another amendment to the constitution. Until then, what we have are legal rulings with no actual precedent to them which, if anyone was truly interested in the intentions of laws rather than what they WISH the intentions were, would be stricken down immediately. And, frankly, I have no problem with de facto standards, so long as peple aren't being persecuted for not adhering to them. It's no different than de facto standards for social behavior - it may make it a little more difficult if you're a bit different, but there is no legal persecution of you for it.