Ah, the march of civilization:
EBENSBURG, Pa. (AP) - Members of a small Amish community in western Pennsylvania have to decide by tomorrow whether to challenge a state order over their school's outhouses.
The school sits on Andy Swartzentruber's farm 70 miles east of Pittsburgh. A state judge has ruled that he and the school are in violation of the state sewage disposal law.
I doubt if the Amish violation of the "sewage disposal law" threatens the public health much, and this is one area where the state should probably back off and let them them live in peace.
I grew up in a part of rural Kentucky that was among the last to get indoor plumbing and had the pleasure of using an outhouse until I was 12. There is something character-building about having to make a midmight trip to one in the middle of February.
Comments
this is one area where the state should probably back off and let them them live in peace
The Swartzentruber Amish are the ones that have pushed back when the government tries to step on their constitutional rights. The Old Order, the Beachy, the Peachy, etc., tend to go along to get along.
A sewage disposal law is a good idea, and if a law exists, it needs to be uniformly enforced. Unlike those of most states, most of the Pennsylvania laws are not published online, so I can't take a look, but I suspect it's a matter of a poorly written law. If it's reasonable to allow the Amish to have outhouses, then the judge needs to overturn the law, and let the legislature write a good one.
Some people call that legislating by the judiciary, but the legislature is a body with 253 heads and no brains. It needs adult supervision once in a while. They CAN write a law that makes sense, if someone holds their feet to the fire.
There is something character-building about having to make a midmight trip to one in the middle of February.
My father-in-law went out one January, and found a garter snake keeping warm under the privy. He didn't like the idea of sitting down, and getting bitten on the tender bits, so he went into the house and got his shotgun.
Newton says that every action is balanced with an equal and opposite reaction. My father-in-law, no physics scholar, didn't realize that meant he would be bathed in an eruption.
My mother-in-law wouldn't allow him into the house to clean up. She made him strip off his clothes, and he danced in the snow while she sprayed him with a garden hose.
Character-building? As Mark Twain said of being tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, if it weren't fer the honor of the thang, he's have druther walked.