{"id":941,"date":"2008-09-17T17:59:15","date_gmt":"2008-09-17T17:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga.php"},"modified":"2008-09-17T17:59:15","modified_gmt":"2008-09-17T17:59:15","slug":"amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga","title":{"rendered":"Amish Farmers Join in Case Against Agriculture Departments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Daniel Burke<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\n(RNS) Six Michigan farmers, including two Amish men, say a state-required livestock numbering system infringes on their religious beliefs and are suing the U.S. and Michigan departments of agriculture to stop the program.<br \/>\nThe electronic numbering and tagging procedure is designed to trace sick animals and protect public health.<br \/>\nBut Robert Alexander and Glen Mast, both members of the Old Order Amish community, believe that &#8220;God and the Bible authorize (them) with dominion over all the animals on the planet.&#8221;<br \/>\nMoreover, they argue in a suit filed Sept. 8 in federal court in Washington, D.C., that &#8220;use of a numbering system &#8230; constitutes some form of a `mark of the beast.'&#8221;<br \/>\nThe Bible&#8217;s book of Revelation warns that the Antichrist will force everyone to receive the &#8220;number of the beast&#8221; during the end times.<br \/>\nThe Amish men are joined in the suit by two ministers, Robert Keyworth, a Pentecostal pastor, and Rev. Roseanne Wyant, who is identified as &#8220;an ordained Reverend of the Christian faith.&#8221;<br \/>\nAll six plaintiffs contend the tagging requirements violate their religious beliefs, which are outlined in numerous Bible verses, according to the suit.<br \/>\n&#8220;Plaintiffs&#8217; religion pervades and determines virtually their entire way of life, regulating it from diet through the strictly enforced rules of their respective church communities,&#8221; the suit says.<br \/>\nIn addition, the ID program forces the Amish farmers to &#8220;violet tenets of their Old Order Amish beliefs&#8230;they are forced to use technology they would not ordinarily use.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe Falls Church, Va.-based Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is representing the farmers.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Six Michigan farmers, including two Amish men, say a state-required livestock numbering system infringes on their religious beliefs and are suing the U.S. and Michigan departments of agriculture to stop the program. The electronic numbering and tagging procedure is designed to trace sick animals and protect public health.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Amish Farmers Join in Case Against Agriculture Departments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amish Farmers Join in Case Against Agriculture Departments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Six Michigan farmers, including two Amish men, say a state-required livestock numbering system infringes on their religious beliefs and are suing the U.S. and Michigan departments of agriculture to stop the program. The electronic numbering and tagging procedure is designed to trace sick animals and protect public health.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-17T17:59:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Amish Farmers Join in Case Against Agriculture Departments","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Amish Farmers Join in Case Against Agriculture Departments","og_description":"By Daniel Burke Religion News Service (RNS) Six Michigan farmers, including two Amish men, say a state-required livestock numbering system infringes on their religious beliefs and are suing the U.S. and Michigan departments of agriculture to stop the program. The electronic numbering and tagging procedure is designed to trace sick animals and protect public health.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-09-17T17:59:15+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga","name":"Amish Farmers Join in Case Against Agriculture Departments","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-09-17T17:59:15+00:00","dateModified":"2008-09-17T17:59:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/amish-farmers-join-in-case-aga#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Amish Farmers Join in Case Against Agriculture Departments"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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