NATION : Amish Bar to Safety Stickers Upheld

The Minnesota Supreme Court today dismissed traffic citations against 14 Amish who had refused to display safety emblems on their horse-drawn buggies as required by state law.

Members of Minnesota’s Amish community have a constitutional right to refuse to affix the orange-red slow-moving vehicle emblems to their buggies, the court unanimously ruled.

“These appellants . . . are unwilling to compromise their belief that the ‘loud’ colors required and the ‘worldly symbols’ the triangular shape represents to them conflicts with the admonitions found in the Apostle Paul’s Epistles,” Associate Justice Glenn Kelley wrote. “To them to do so would be putting their faith in ‘worldly symbols’ rather than in God.”