Our government is currently being run by incredibly stupid people.

Instead of mandatory ID, seizing laptops, illegal wiretapping, secret prisons, elimination of habeas corpus and border fences maybe we should stop slaughtering people on the other side of the planet for no damn good reason. 

That might *actually* make us safer.
Reason, however, doesn't stand a chance under the bush regime.

At last the almost invariably wacky nature of religious "attitude" in the US is going to do something useful, namely put a foot in the increasingly dictatorial nature of the White House administration.
Until, that is, the day the White House decides that they're all just terrorists anyway, and does a huge Waco on them all.

But you just said: opting out would make it more difficult to get on airlines.

While there may be a policy that does not force people to have their pictures taken for ID cards or whatnot, that doesn't mean that there isn't still a requirement to have one to "enjoy" the benefits of freer travel among other things. It's not like there are religious exemptions for going through metal detectors or being patted down for weapons in line.

As religion has always been a matter of convenience, watch as people compromise their values to for the convenience of moving through line faster.