{"id":7260,"date":"2012-04-28T22:02:17","date_gmt":"2012-04-28T22:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7260"},"modified":"2012-04-28T23:04:49","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T23:04:49","slug":"balkanization-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/balkanization-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Balkanization Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via the Washington Post<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\nThe Hutterites are Protestants similar to the Amish and Mennonites who live a life centered on their religion, but unlike the others, Hutterites live in German-speaking communes scattered across northern U.S. states and Canada. They don\u2019t pay wages, don\u2019t vote and don\u2019t enlist in the military. They make their own clothes, produce their own food and construct their own buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir core belief is that they have no property. All the property and labor they have, they contribute to the colony,\u201d Ron Nelson, an attorney for the Big Sky Colony, told the Montana Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s high court on Wednesday heard arguments by the colony and the state on whether Montana\u2019s requirement that employers carry workers\u2019 compensation insurance can be expanded to religious organizations. A state judge has already ruled the 2009 law expanding the workers\u2019 compensation law to force the Hutterites to pay for the insurance violated their right to freely exercise their religion.<\/p>\n

The state is asking the high court to reverse that decision, arguing the new law deals only with commercial activities and stays out of the Hutterites religious affairs.<\/p>\n

The Hutterites\u2019 argument that everything they do is tied to their religion cannot exempt them from regulation when they voluntarily enter into an outside commercial activity, assistant Attorney General Stuart Segrest said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not allowed to become a law unto themselves,\u201d Segrest said<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via the Washington Post: The Hutterites are Protestants similar to the Amish and Mennonites who live a life centered on their religion, but unlike the others, Hutterites live in German-speaking communes scattered across northern U.S. states and Canada. They don\u2019t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[746],"tags":[29,363,910],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7260"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7283,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260\/revisions\/7283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}