Paul Finkelman
-- Paul Finkelman Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law University of Tulsa College of Law 3120 East 4th Place Tulsa, OK 74104-3189
918-631-3706 (office) 918-631-2194 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Avi Schick wrote:
Professor Levinson I'm somewhat confused by your statement that "even if the article is off by 50% with regard to the actual number of young women who are raped or otherwise abused by their fathers and, especially, brothers, it nevertheless states a powerful claim." Any abuse of the sort recounted in the article is horrific, but the article doesn't attempt to quantify the abuse. The closest it comes is when it says" "no statistics are available, but according to one Amish counselor who works with troubled church members across the Midwest, sexual abuse of children is "almost a plague in some communities." Are these the "actual numbers" that your post refers to, or did I miss something? I'm also interested in your belief that there is a constitutional dimension to the issue. To me, it appears that the problem stems from the Amish insularity from outside influences. While that insularity stems from a religious belief, it is not the concern of the state. Perhaps a decision to require Amish children to attend public high schools would act as a check on the abuse discussed on the article, by providing children with an outsider to report it to. On the other hand, the abuse discussed in the article began at an early age, and Amish children are in school through 8th grade. Besides, I imagine the amish would choose to send their children to Amish schools, not public schools. Perhaps prosecutors are less likely to take seriously an allegation of abuse coming from an Amish child. If that was so, the article certainly serves an important corrective purpose. Again, though, this is not a constitutional concern. After all, I suspect that allegations of abuse or other crimes against a tenured law professor might sometimes be treated differently than similar allegations against an immigrant with limited english language skills. The article also mentions that some prosecutors are hesitant to prosecute Amish. I'm not sure if Amish vote (although I doubt it) but even if they don't perhaps the motivation is (as the article explains) the desire to protect a lucrative (to the State) tourist industry. That too is a political problem, not a constitutional one. It explains why police conduct drug raids in inner city communities and not at Wall Street or Hollywood holiday parties where the drug laws are no doubt violated openly and disdainfully. Your post ends by noting that we know little about the Amish or hasidim and are reduced to arguing "whether the FE Clause gives them a pass from any genuine monitoring by the "external" legal order." I am certainly not as up on the caselaw as you are, but wonder which cases concern "genuine monitoring by the "external" legal order." Not the KJ cases or Yoder, which are education cases. Lukumi is closer, but it concerned the applicability of a particular law, not an exemption from "general monitoring" by the "legal order." Has there really been a Supreme Court case in the past several decades that seriously considered the question of exempting religious believers from the American legal system? Avi Schick (writing solely in my personal capacity)[EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/01/05 4:06 PM >>>I strongly recommend an article by Nadya Labi, "The Gentle People," in the current issue of Legal Affairs. It argues that incest is rife within Amish communities and that, basically, the community does next to nothing to control it, other than pressing the victims to "forgive" the perpetrators (who go on perpetrating). It is, I think, an essential "corrective," as it were, to the image of the Amish portrayed in Yoder. At the very least, there seems to be no good reason to be less concerned about child abuse within the Amish community than, say, the abuse that is alleged with regard to polygamous "old-Mormon" communities or, indeed, pedophilia within the Catholic Church. Even if the article is off by 50% with regard to the actual number of young women who are raped or otherwise abused by their fathers and, especially, brothers, it nevertheless states a powerful claim. One of its central points is the practical inability of the formal legal system to do much about this, inasmuch as some prosecutors treat the perpetrators like football players in Virginia (i.e., there's a lot of turning the eye away); more seriouis, perhaps, is the very strong code within the Amish community that effectively prevents "going to law" to resolve such problems. The only effective remedy appears to be physically running away, by young women who, of course, have received nothing that could possibly count as an education adequate to allow them to flourish in what is disdainfully termed, by the Amish, the "English" society. No doubt there are many wonderful people among the Amish, though, of course, I suspect that most of us have never met anyone who actually lives within that community, just as most of us have never had the pleasure of meeting a Satmar Hasid from Kiryat Joel. We are ultimately reduced to a version of "making up stories" about how they actually live their lives and (mis)treat their children and whether the FE Clause gives them a pass from any genuine monitoring by the "external" legal order. A Happy New Year to all! sandy _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. 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_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
