WASHINGTON (dpa) – Amish man Jonas Swartzentruber spent three days in Ebensburg city jail in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
His crime was a simple: He refused to label his carriage with the reflective orange triangle required for all slow-moving vehicles. Instead, he used grey reflective tape and a lantern to make his carriage visible to the car drivers with whom he shares the roads.
The legal wrangling over carriage visibility is just one example of the Amish struggle to live in a modern society without becoming a part of it.
The 70-member Swartzentruber community is one of the most conservative of America’s Amish groups. The religious community was founded in 1693 by the Swiss bishop Jacob Amman. Its members have been emigrating to the U.S. since the beginning of the 18th century.
The group requires a strict separation between church and state, baptism in adulthood and a commitment to pacifism, practices which made them the subjects of repeated witch hunts in Europe.
Today, the Amish live in 250 communities in 22 American states.
The Amish isolate themselves as much as possible from the rest of society and refuse to use almost any modern innovations. They have no electricity or telephones and are not connected to the city’s sewage system. They drive horse-drawn carriages rather than cars.
Amish children attend private Amish schools, where pupils of all ages are taught together in a single classroom. The Amish dress is a traditional, plain uniform and the native language they speak is an old German dialect.
The group’s strict rules prohibit Jonas Swartzentruber from accepting the judge’s offer that he either pay a 100-dollar fine or perform community service to avoid spending time in jail.
He had to refuse community service because riding in a car or having contact with electrical equipment might have been required of him, the Swartzentrubers’ attorney Donna Doblick explained.
While Jonas’ case made its way through the legal system, ten other Swartzentruber community members have been brought before court for inadequate marking on their carriages.
The orange reflective triangles violate the Swartzentrubers’ rules. Bright colours are not allowed because the group rejects all forms of decoration. They also want members to avoid using the streets any more often than is necessary and fear the orange triangles encourage evening excursions, said Witold Walczak, leader of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union.
In court, the 10 defendants are seeking acquittal and exemption from the standard marking requirements for their carriages.
The Amish have the support of a Pennsylvania state senator, who wants to introduce a bill that would allow such religious groups to use alternate markings on their vehicles.
Walczak says it is the Swartzentrubers’ constitutional right to practice their religion, and at least five other U.S. states have allowed similar exemptions.
