How Amish interact with government on issues including schooling, raw milk, politics, military service, and others.
One thing you notice right away if you visit Lancaster County for the first time–especially when comparing it to just about any other Amish settlement–is how congested it is. There are a lot of people in what is supposedly a ‘rural’ county–nearly half-a-million. Some time ago, locals became concerned with what would happen if land pressures eventually caused the ‘garden spot of America’ to end…
The Amish settlement at Piketon, Ohio was an odd one to begin with. A few things made the Amish who settled here in 1949 different from most. One was their evangelistic emphasis. Amish traditionally do not try to convert others. Piketon, Ohio was begun by a minister sympathetic to the idea of spreading Amish beliefs. Secondly, they were the first Amish congregation ever to publish…
‘The Amish don’t pay taxes. They’re freeloaders.’ Ryan Robinson of the Lancaster New Era writes (no longer available) that myths such as these persist, apparently even among long-time neighbors of the Amish. Why the confusion? Amish are generally exempt from paying Social Security taxes, a privilege negotiated some years ago with the federal government. But at the same time they also refrain from receiving benefits….
‘Our goal is to make Lancaster a center for the film industry.’ That’s Jay Ingram of the Lancaster Film Commission in an article (no longer available) at Lancaster Online. The 1985 Harrision Ford blockbuster Witness and the following media and tourist onslaught has irritated some in Lancaster. Donald Kraybill relates in The Riddle of Amish Culture that the Amish even considered using the ‘ultimate bargaining…
The Amish often seek medical treatment across the border. Cost is the main reason why. Lacking health insurance as the Amish do, treatment in the US can be expensive. A new law requiring passports, complete with identifying photos, could stop trips to Canada and Mexico. The photo part is the problem. Most Amish avoid posing for photos. The group has usually been able to negotiate…
Another midwife case is in the news. Many Amish women prefer bearing their children at home or in specially-constructed birthing centers. Reasons include the comfort of being in familiar surroundings as opposed to the foreign environment of the hospital, as well as cost. It’s usually a lot cheaper to have a child at home than in a hospital. The Amish have 6-8 children on average,…
The Amish famously refuse anything that smacks of government dependence. They opt out of Social Security, agricultural subsidies, Medicaid, Medicare, and generally any sort of public welfare program. Strangely, this is news for Ohio’s Department of Job and Family Services. Ohio has the largest Amish population in the nation, by far. Yet they recently decided that the Amish needed to step up their Food Stamp…
Most Amish look alike to the man on the street. In reality the group is surprisingly diverse. Though tied by a set of core beliefs, the Amish have no national governing body, no pope nor patriarch. The individual congregation, guided by its bishop, decides its own rules and customs. This decentralized approach, along with a widely varying tolerance for progressive ideas, creates many different ‘flavors’…