NEW safety measures in Ohio, in the United States, which require the Amish community’s black buggies to display flashing lights, are being challenged as a threat to freedom of religion.
The case against the state of Ohio has been taken up by Harvard University’s Religious Freedom Clinic on behalf of the Swartzentruber Amish community.
The community is one of the largest and most conservative groups of Amish. Many of their church districts are in Ohio: they make up about 12 per cent of the Amish community in the state.Belonging to the Old Order Amish, they are the most restrictive of all Amish affiliations over the use of technology by members, proscribing all indoor plumbing and electricity.
Their buggies are all black, and use reflective tape in place of triangular warning signs to indicate a slow-moving vehicle: they eschew the warning signs as too worldly. They also use lanterns in place of battery-operated lights.
A new law introduced by state lawmakers, which orders that all buggies must carry a flashing amber light for visibility, has led to several encounters between police and members of the community, the Religion News Service (RNS) reports.
The community’s case has now been taken up by Harvard’s Religious Freedom Clinic, which last week filed a complaint and a preliminary injunction to halt the law’s enforcement, arguing that it prevents community members from freely practising their faith, and that it restricts their ability to move through the state.
The state has insisted that the new law is designed to improve safety, following an increase in fatalities after road traffic accidents between cars and buggies.
Similar laws in a number of other US states, however, have been forced to change to accommodate the Swartzentrubers. Ohio state politicians submitted letters from some members of the Amish community before they agreed the law change, but it has been opposed by the majority. Some have alleged that police have been specifically targeting members of the community, including waiting outside church services to ticket buggies.
A sociologist, Corey Anderson, told the RNS that members of the Amish community would not ask for legal help because they believed in being “defenceless Christians”. He is communicating with members of the Swartzentruber, and with the Harvard legal team, which has stepped in to offer legal advice.
Steven Burnett, a Fellow at the Religious Freedom Clinic, said that the legal precedents from other states boded well for the Swartzentrubers: “It’s the same kind of tension between a presumed safety interest and a religious interest.”
Equating visibility with reduced accidents was simplistic, he suggested. Crashes involving buggies and cars occur “by a large margin” during the day, he argued, often in good weather conditions and on straight roads, when a car sees a buggy and attempts unsuccessfully to pass it.