This country is ruled by censorship and fear! It’s called political correctness and that involves something called “religion.” And because one tiny sub-sector, of a sub-sector, of a sub-sector of a group who prefer to call themselves “religious” and their “religion” prohibits them from wearing “flashy” clothes, they want the State of Maine to change the law that requires hunter orange mandates, for public safety reasons, in minimum amounts for hunting in the Maine woods, to satisfy their “religious” beliefs.

According to George Smith’s article, there appears to have been but two issues (or that’s all Mr. Smith chose to report) involved with the recommendation for or against this bill – safety and the definition of “red.”

I expressed my opinions about this subject last week.

It should be a no-brainer about safety. If outdoorsmen and safety experts, as has been done for over a decade now, subscribe to the promoted talking points of how much safer hunter orange (a minimum standard luminescent orange color highly visible even in questionable amounts of daylight) is over any other clothing, then the issue of its requirement should not become one of religion…should it? One can understand the government forcing people to murder unborn babies as a violation of a “religious” or moral belief, but to participate at the risk of endangering, not only the Amish, but the risk of causing confusion where years of training and adapting to hunter orange and “identifying a target” seems a bit silly to me. And where does the liability on the issue fall? One would rationally conclude that the wearing of “flashy” clothes might be something not permitted, for many of the same reasons Pagan worship practices many outrageous things include “flashy” statues, idols, clothing, etc., when an Amish person goes out in public, not into the woods to hunt.

One might even make argument that if one believes God gave man the dominion over animals and therefore hunting is allowed by a religious order, then perhaps there is something wrong with the religious order banning “flashy” clothing and not the law that has been crafted for public safety.

If my “religion” was so important to me that I can’t bring myself to wear hunter orange so that I can participate in hunting deer in Maine, I think I would give up hunting during the time I had to wear “flashy” clothing. Either it is that important or it’s not.

So now, to further this idiotic nonsense of political correctness and perpetuate the fear of some sort of reprisal from the “religions,” state law makers are now going to try to pass the buck (no pun intended) and come up with a definition of “red” in hopes they can use that as an escape goat.

So tell me! How much more absurd can our society become attempting to turn their backs on the one and only Creator of all things, in order to appease the Satanic worship and idiosyncrasies of a group choosing to call themselves “religious” in order to reap the benefits of political correctness’es preferred treatments and special privileges?

Perhaps the State of Maine should consider the below photograph as a great example of what they can require of Amish hunters, while at the same time appeasing the “rights” of many other groups and not running the risk of offending them.

*Update* – I forgot to mention when I wrote this an hour ago, that, according to Smith’s article, when asked about how wardens would enforce the Amish exception, he wrote: “if a warden did issue a summons for not wearing orange, the hunter would have to prove in court that his religion prohibited him from doing so.”

Information available here is very lacking. But suppose such an Amish Exception becomes law. Do the Amish then have a preferred privilege over someone who might belong to another “religious” sect that also prohibits “flashy” clothing? Will the Amish, if caught wearing “red” instead of what’s required by law, have to also go to court, at their expense, to prove their innocence? The other question of importance is when does it become necessary that every citizen is presumed guilty until they can go to court and prove their innocence – which is exactly what such a statement establishes?