Hoping to avoid seeing a legal confrontation between the Amish and the state government, Rep. Dave McCrea, D-Fort Fairfield, wants to let Amish community members hunt wearing red rather than orange blaze in accordance with their religious customs.
Dozens of Amish families have settled in Aroostook County and other parts of Maine in the last decade, and they now operate farms, carpentry shops, bakeries and other businesses. While they avoid most kinds of modern technology, they do participate in one of Maine’s oldest traditions: hunting, with firearms.
But Amish hunters in Maine have found themselves in a predicament. They say their religion prohibits wearing “flashy” or “worldly” colors like blaze orange — a color hunters need to wear for safety reasons according to state law.
McCrea, a retired teacher whose community of Fort Fairfield is home to some of the first the Amish families to settle in Maine, said he’s concerned that discrepancy could lead to a legal showdown, and is sponsoring a new bill to give Amish hunters an exemption: L.D. 426, “An Act To Allow Hunters Whose Religion Prohibits Wearing Hunter Orange Clothing To Hunt Instead of Red. ”
“If they get arrested hunting, they will not wear orange, and if the Warden gives them a ticket, they will not pay the fine,” McCrea said in an interview in January. “I’m totally convinced we will see this go to court based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.”
That federal law states that laws “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” even if the law is of “general applicability.”
Three members of Aroostook County Amish communities travelled to Augusta on March 16 to air their support for the bill at a hearing before the Joint Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
“Our church group always maintained a belief against wearing hunter orange because of its bright and worldly color,” said Norman Miller of Fort Fairfield. “Our group currently wear bright red while hunting, despite the fact that it is not at all a favorite color for us.”
Noah Yoder, an Amish farmer and clock repair specialist also of Fort Fairfield, said during the hearing that if Amish hunters were cited for not wearing orange, they would not pay a fine, which is also against their religious customs.
“We all know what would then follow is a long, messy, expensive court battle, for the state and for us,” Yoder said. “The blaze orange requirement, as it is written today, forces us to either obey the law and give up our church fellowship, or follow church teaching and doctrine and break the law.”
The bill has the support of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, whose staff have told Amish members that they should seek an exemption, Yoder said.
Tim Peabody, IFW deputy commissioner, said that the bill “provides visibility for a hunter and a choice for persons who have a religious opposition to wearing hunter orange.”
