Munson: 'Religious rights prevail' in Supreme Court ruling
A unanimous decision lets Mennonites keep steel wheels on their tractors.
5:41 AM, Feb. 4, 2012
MITCHELL COUNTY, IA. — The call came at 8:39 a.m. Friday on a foggy morning in far northern Iowa — as if a commentary on the haze that has lingered here over this issue for more than two years.
Daniel Zimmerman, a Mennonite farmer, picked up the phone inside one of his 3,000-square-foot greenhouses situated along the southern edge of Mitchell County. At the other end of the line was his attorney in Mason City, Colin Murphy.
“I’m doing fine,” Zimmerman said. “Maybe I’ll be doing better if I hear what you’ve got to say.”
Turns out the farmer was happy to hear Murphy’s news: The seven justices of the Iowa Supreme Court struck down Mitchell County’s 2009 ordinance prohibiting the steel wheels used by Mennonites. The court explained in a 29-page unanimous opinion written by Justice Edward Mansfield that “religious rights prevail” and that the county should be able to protect its roads with a less restrictive ordinance, “without banning the tractors used by the Mennonites.”
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120204/NEWS/302040040/?odyssey=nav|head
Link to pdf text of opinion at link.
= new reply since forum marked as read
