Strange bedfellows

Here are a couple of sites set up to generate grassroots opposition to the Real ID Act, which essentially requires states to turn their drivers' licenses into de facto national ID cards.

This one is from the ACLU, which sees the national ID card as a gross invasion of privacy that won't do anything significant to deter terrorism:

The Real ID Act of 2005 would turn our state driver’s licenses into a genuine national identity card and impose numerous new burdens on taxpayers, citizens, immigrants, and state governments – while doing nothing to protect against terrorism. As a result, it is stirring intense opposition from many groups across the political spectrum. This Web site provides information about opposing Real ID.

And this one is from Endtime Ministries, which views the national ID card as the Mark of the Beast:

There is a prophecy in the Bible that foretells a time when every person will be required to have a mark or a number, without which he or she will not be able to participate in the economy. The prophecy is 2,000 years old, but it has been impossible for it to come to pass until now. With the invention of the computer and the Internet, this prophecy of buying and selling, using a number, can now be implemented at any time. Has the time for the fulfillment of this prophecy arrived?

And the libertarians shall lay down with the loons.

• RealNightmare.org (ACLU)
• NoNationalID.com (Endtime Ministries)

P.S. Ah, the benefits of a good old-fashioned parochial school education: Here are the hair-raising relevant bits from the Book of Revelation, chapter 13, King James translation.

11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads..."

I dunno, dude. Even allowing for the archaic English, that sounds more like implantable RFID chips to me.