West Virginian Cites Real ID in League with Anti-Christ

Biometrics and ACLU Neighbors Make Their Case
Register Herald
8/08/08

Physics teacher Phillip Hudok, a fundamentalist Christian who once lost his job temporarily over bar-coded student ID cards, is driving now with an alternate license, sans the digitized photograph he fears is a step in putting the entire world under an end-time dictator, known in the Bible as the Antichrist.
In Bible studies and seminars, the topic of the West Virginia driver’s license frequently arose, he explained.

“We’re seeing what we talked about all the time — the prophetic progression of a tyrannical state that mirrors what the Bible talks about,” he said.

As far as he knows, Hudok is the first to reject the digitized photo and said he and Paugh decided to reach out to the news media as a means of spreading the word that West Virginia motorists aren’t obligated to have the three-dimensional photograph on their licenses.

“It’s ironic that when you get your driver’s license, the posting says that fingerprints are optional,” he said. “And yet, by taking the picture, you’re giving a fingerprint of your face. I don’t think most people are aware of it.”

Hudok’s opposition runs nearly parallel to a war waged against the federal Real ID card by Sen. Clark Barnes, R-Randolph, and Seth DiStefano, field organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union in West Virginia. DiStefano is Hudok’s next-door neighbor but wasn’t involved in the driver’s license issue. The ACLU official and Barnes, however, teamed up in an effort to block the state from participating in Real ID, but their bill died in a House committee last March.