This Is What Happens When Religion Outweighs Children’s Rights

For the Amish, the 1972 US Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder disputes were about retaining the ability to force a child to work for free and to keep the child ignorant of their rights as a US citizen. Making it about religion was a convenient cover. But for the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, a non-Amish special interest group that hired the attorneys and paid the legal bills for the Amish, Yoder was about using the Amish as a guinea pig to see how far they could push religious freedom provisions for the benefit of the Committee’s non-Amish purposes.

For the Amish, the 1972 US Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder disputes were about retaining the ability to force a child to work for free-and thereby reduce payroll expenses-and to keep the child ignorant of their rights as a US citizen, rights that supersede Amish law. Making it about religion was a convenient cover.

But for the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, a non-Amish special interest group that hired the attorneys and paid the legal bills for the Amish, Yoder was about using the Amish as a guinea pig to see how far they could push religious freedom provisions for the benefit of the Committee’s non-Amish purposes.

What outsiders don’t understand, and which of course was never revealed in the court…