The Never-Ending Religious Liberty Case Involving Steel Tires, Damaged Roads, and Mennonites

[muriel_volestrangler]

It involves the Groffdale Conference Mennonite Church, a group that forbids driving in vehicles with rubber tires because that would be seen as a form of convenient transportation, or of conforming to the world in a materialistic way. The Bible, in Romans 12:2, says you shouldn’t do that.

So they don’t conform… but they still have to do manual labor and move their products from farm to farm. How do you do that without modern transportation (and those rubber tires)? Simple. They retrofit their tractors with steel tires, which are just uncomfortable enough that they’re not going to use them unless they have to — as an added bonus, it protects the horse/buggy combo that the Mennonites love so much.

You might chalk this up to religious quirkiness, until you realize that when they use the public roads to go from one farm to the next, the steel tires cause a lot of damage. It cracks the pavement. It removes paint from the roads. And since Mitchell County (Iowa) spent $9 million to resurface the roads in 2009, officials were understandably upset that this group was essentially undoing all that work.
...
That ruling came down in 2012, and Mitchell County officials are still trying to grapple with the road damage issue. That year, in response the Supreme Court ruling, they modified the ordinance to address the unconstitutional issues, broadening it so it didn’t appear to single out any one particular group. But last year, when another member of the religion was issued a fine for driving with steel tires, the case went back to court… and a magistrate ruled last week that the revised ordinance was still too restrictive. (The County has appealed the ruling.)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/06/25/the-never-ending-religious-liberty-case-involving-steel-tires-damaged-roads-and-mennonites-2/

Seems simple to me: steel tires cause excessive damage to a public good, and therefore can either be fined, or taxed enough to pay for all the damage they do (since you have taxes to pay for the upkeep of the public roads already). If Mennonites are doing it to be masochistic (it's not as if the steel they're using is old-fashioned), then the extra money they pay to do this should be part of the pain they feel.

[Human101948]

1. Can't they just put some tacks on the driver's seat?

Seems that would counteract the convenience of rubber tires.

[rug]

2. Mitchell County v. Zimmerman

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ia-supreme-court/1593033.html

[pipoman]

3. Just an FYI

In this case the term "Mennonites" is used to describe a group that are not considered "Mennonites" by most Mennonites. They self describe this way. The masses of Mennonites...tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands are very modern, educated, and progressive both socially and politically. I am not a Mennonite but have lived among them my whole life and am currently employed by a Mennonite nonprofit organization...they are overwhelmingly good people who are no different than anyone else except for their shared heritage...

The Mennonite Central Committee is the largest group in the US and consists of several different groups of Mennonites...all drive cars and most are huge advocates of higher education and community involvement.

http://mcc.org/learn/about

Frankly this sounds way more like an amish splinter group who self proclaim being Mennonite much like the "Holdeman Mennonites"...

[teenagebambam]

5. Thanks

I was a little confused as well...all the Mennonite families in my area (western MD) are fully modern in every way (except their modest dress)

[Freddie]

7. Thanks for the clarification

I grew up in a part of PA with lots of Mennonites, mostly farmers. Very good people and modern except for conservative clothes. They went to public school, no miniskirts on the girls in the 70's and back then some of them still wore the white bonnets. Once in a while you still see an older woman with the bonnet.

[maindawg]

4. You cannot drive on the public roads with steel wheels

That is the law in most states. Like if your tire blows .it will come off and your driving on the rim. You get a ticket and have to pay to repair the road, that cost about 100,000 per mile. So the Mennonites might rethink their whole policy with a couple fines to repair some damage.

[Xipe Totec]

6. Simpler still, don't use roads; they're far too convenient. nt