GovernmentExecutive.com

Critics of federal legislation to establish nationwide identification standards are tapping into religious groups to galvanize resistance to the statute.

The authors of a New Hampshire bill to make the Granite State the first to reject the so-called REAL ID Act have cited financial and constitutional concerns about its implementation. But several conservative Christian groups that have endorsed the New Hampshire proposal are largely motivated by their belief that the law is a sign of the apocalypse.

According to leaders of the movement against the statute, the cause has benefited immensely from the active participation of groups that view the law as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy. Such groups refer to scripture that predicts that humans will be numbered by marks on their foreheads and hands before the arrival of the antichrist.

Katherine Albrecht, the founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, has lobbied extensively on behalf of the New Hampshire bill. She said religious groups have been valuable because they are highly mobile and well-organized.

Ervin (Butch) Paugh, a preacher and radio host in West Virginia who is running for governor on the Constitutionalist Party ticket, has been urging lawmakers in his state to follow New Hampshire's lead. Joe Cicchirillo, a commissioner at West Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles, said he was impressed by Paugh's knowledge of the issue when he met with him this month.

"These guys are really well-informed," Cicchirillo said. "They were well-versed in the details of the New Hampshire situation, and they defend their arguments well."

Albrecht, who is organizing a rally against REAL ID in New Hampshire later this week, said she had hoped Irvin Baxter, the publisher of the religious magazine Endtime, would be able to attend. Baxter said in a telephone interview that he could not make it but that he is closely following the progress of the New Hampshire proposal.

According to Baxter, who also maintains the Web site NoNationalID.com, lawmakers have been forced to adopt policies to monitor individuals within the United States because they have failed to implement an effective border-security strategy. He said the construction of a high-tech fence, much like the one separating Israel from the West Bank, would negate the need for national IDs.

Federal immigration proposals that would expand a voluntary employment-verification database have complicated the debate, he said. "There has to be another way to enforce security outside of our borders," Baxter said. "But our political leaders have bought into this whole idea of globalization, and this is leading us to a 'mark of the beast' system -- so this all ties together."

Baxter said he is particularly disappointed in President Bush, who he had hoped would be more sympathetic to Christian concerns about national IDs.

"I am stunned," Baxter said. "He either skipped over that part of the Bible, or he completely misunderstood it."

COMMENTS

• Hey all you who are bashing religious people, LISTEN to this!! I totally agree that church and state must be separated. In America, religion has no place in politics, all it does is stand as moral ground work people have. All this fear of National IDs from religious groups roots down to the same thing. National ID cards have the POTENTIAL to lead to civil and religious liberty restrictions and even discrimination (don't even say it doesn't happen, cause it does now and will forever!) None of them wants that (who would?) because to them being restricted or punished for their faith is an intolerable attack on their very souls and salvation. SO THEY ARE VERY WARY OF THAT. People, fighting against anything that could possibly infringe on religious liberty is the history of our nation and that will never change! If YOU don't like that, move somewhere where religion doesn't exist. Anyway, even if you are not religious at all, it is NOT paranoia to KNOW that such a thing as a National ID card would infringe on personal liberties. Privacy, freedom of movement (i.e.- transportation), and access to what is ours by right as US citizens will all be gone if not barely existing if a true card is actually issued and you decide to exercise YOUR rights by refusing to carry one. It -wrong- to the point of perversity. What are the values we hold as a nation? And for what? What is the trade off? This won't solve illegal immigration because when the time comes for cards there will be how-many million with no proof of identity. What are we going to do, ship all of them out, or maybe suddenly allow them to become citizens? The card WILL NOT protect against identity theft. NOTHING is fool proof, and guess what, "almost" is -never- enough. You make the game harder for identities to be forged; the "black market" ups the ante and simply makes forgeries more expensive. That's all. As for terrorism, terrorists can be completely legitimate "card-holding" citizens of the US or other nations with similar systems. And they will do just as much damage. The real threat of terrorism is not -stupid- people who just up and decide to do it one day. Real terrorists are -trained- and if "official" will probably be provided by their group a means of getting convincing enough identification to get by for however long is needed. Just, why? Attention here! Posted January 11, 2008 8:46 PM
• The church has no business voicing an opinion here or on any political issue period! If you want to be heard pay taxes like the rest of us, so until then put a sock in it. Rick Posted May 4, 2006 8:59 AM
• It is the height of hypocrisy for us to worry about Iraq turning into a theocracy while at the same time religious zealots in this country want to steer the United States in that very direction. Whether National IDs are a good idea, a bad idea or an amoral idea is not something that should be left up to the priests and the religious establishment to decide. I do believe these issues are traditionally handled by governments? Yeah, I think I read something on that somewhere. David Posted April 20, 2006 12:09 PM