Was 15 days jail time excessive?

There should be civil punishments or criminal punishments.

This is a safety hazard, not an issue of religious liberty.

The Amish are accommodated generously by being allowed to drive their horse-drawn buggies on highways -- which were designed for automobile traffic and highway speeds.

The Amish need to accommodate us by enabling us to be able to see them when speed differentials are dozens of miles per hour.

If they do not want to take these reasonable steps to do their part to help ensure the safety of the general public, they need to stay off those roads.

If they want to use the modern convenience of paved highways, bright-colored reflectors are not too much to ask. This is especially true given Romans 13, which tells us to obey civil authority.

If they want to endanger the safety of everyone on the roads because they do not want to obey reasonable safety laws, they can pay fines out the wazoo and/or go to jail.

 

SALTCITYBAPTIST:

I can only tell you what I think.

If you think religious liberty means that religious people ought to be able to endanger anyone not in their religion, then your view if enacted will create a dangerous state of anarchy.

This is not about the majority picking on the minority, as you insinuate.

Here are the facts: I live in an area where we are subject to encountering Amish traffic. It is a dangerous thing to smack into a horse-drawn carriage at 55 mph. Anyone on the buggy is likely to be dead -- and any survivors involved traumatized. The horse or horses: most likely dead, or soon euthanized. The driver and any passengers: injured or dead. People in nearby cars: injured or dead.

My fiancee is very near and dear to my heart. I do not want her hurt or killed because someone chose a religion, got on a public highway, and disregarded safety laws. I do not want to be crippled, or leave her bereaved. They have the right to choose their religion; we have the right to reject their religion and remain safe.

The Amish know they have no Bible verse(s) to point to for their positions. Their positions on modern conveniences are not biblical. They choose to remain aloof from modern conveniences to prevent tainting by `worldly enticements.' They are `barriers to the world.' Each Amish colony has different rules set the the opinions of the leaders. In my area, both Amish colonies use reflectors, and I have seen electric lanterns too.

The Amish of this particular colony want to use modern paved highways -- but they want to reject reasonable modern safety measures. They want to pick and choose -- to the peril of every person in a car. That is not fair. We have the right to not be endangered by their choice of religion.

I do not see how requiring the Amish to use reflectors to protect motorists is to be compared to murdering an unborn child. If you are that desperate to make that stretch, I suspect that your emotional attachment precludes discussing it reasonably.

 

In my area of Western Kentucky, a similar story.

This was in Mayfield, Kentucky. One interesting thing. One of the Amish men in the OP story was named Eli Yoder. Another was Joni Yoder. Look at the name of one of the men in the Mayfield story.

 

By the way, the defendants had a choice of paying a $10 fine instead of going to jail.

They made their choice.

 

we have a lot of amish here also, and frequent amish deaths in buggies, because of speed.
Seems senseless to allow some to violate the law when others would be punished for the same violation. Don't know about anywhere else, but driving that much under the speed limit here will get you a ticket, unless your amish.