I recently stumbled across this little gem of a case.
It seems that Mr. Robert G. Loudon, a God-fearing resident of Memphis, Tennessee, on a sunny day in June, 1990, was stopped by police for making an illegal left turn. When asked for his license, Mr. Loudon replied that it had expired. The officer then prepared a citation for the illegal turn, and for driving without a license, and presented it to Mr. Loudon for his signature. Mr. Loudon refused to sign, because (as the court explains):
"[Mr. Loudon] advised [the officer] that he could not be arrested because her God was not as big as his God. He referred to her as “an agent of the socialistic government and he felt that it was that type of government that was trying to brand him with this mark."
Mr. Loudon refused to renew his driver’s license because doing so would require him to provide his social security number to the DMV. In a letter to the Tennessee Department of Safety, Mr. Loudon declared that:
"[I]t is illegal for you or anyone else to deny me a renewal of my operator license because I neither have nor will get a Socialist Surveillance Number; and so to do will be a violation of Federal laws both civil and criminal, regardless of any 'Laws' you claim to be acting under color of...."
"I do not have a Social Security number because that number is now becoming the mark of the beast against which we are warned in the Bible at Revelation 13:16-18, 14:11, and other places. I have committed my life to follow the Lord Jesus, Christ, and I cannot permit myself to be defiled with your number, as it would surely defile me."
Alas for Mr. Loudon, the heathen courts of Tennessee weren't convinced. Risking the fire and brimstone of Loudon’s vengeful God and in the best "render unto Caesar" tradition, the Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction and sentence of a $108 fine and thirty days to serve at the Shelby County Correctional Center.
The case is Tennessee v. Loudon, 857 S.W.2d 878 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1993).
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