12/3/2008 8:28:00 AM Amish farmers up in arms over electronic ID tags
Amish farmers in Michigan are suing the USDA, saying use of electronic identification tags on animals goes against their religion, and infringes on their rights.
From News Reports
The United Kingdom's Telegraph Newspaper recently ran an interesting article on one U.S. farming group that is often overlooked - the Amish.
With a population totaling 231,000, and predominately residing in rural states like Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana, the religious sect leads a simplistic lifestyle and generally keeps quiet about any national hot topics.
That is not the case for a group of seven Amish farmers in Michigan who are voicing concern about the state's insistence that they use radio frequency ID devices on their animals.
According to the farmers, the RFID tags "constitutes some form of a 'mark of the Beast' and/or represents an infringement of their 'dominion over cattle and all living things' in violation of their fundamental religious beliefs."
Some Amish, who have a booming business in producing organic milk, disagree with radio ID tagging so strongly that they said they will give up farming if they do not get an exemption. The Michigan group is suing the U.S. government for infringing on their rights as U.S. citizens.
The Amish, members of an Anabaptist Christian denomination, are best known for their literal interpretation of the Bible and their simple lifestyle.
The livestock registration is intended to create a national tracking system to help contain outbreaks of diseases such as mad cow disease, or foot and mouth.
But according to the Telegraph the Amish claim that the scheme threatens their religious beliefs because, they believe, it is part of an ongoing attempt to number every living thing, a practice mentioned in Revelations where it is linked with the Devil.
The US department of agriculture (USDA) argues that its cattle tagging plan is voluntary and that the lawsuit should instead be directed at the state of Michigan, which wants to make it compulsory.
The USDA has also pointed out that farmers, including Amish ones, are already using numbered metal studs to track animals.
