They aren't the first population in the US to have this kind of trouble on religious grounds.
The Mormons, also, are an incredibly inbred population; there are about a half-dozen family lines, and they all marry into each other. As a consequence, the Mormons you don't see in public, ever, are the many who suffer from congenital blindness and dwarfism, or the ones who die young from other genetic diseases.
Although the Mormons are supposed to not rely on industrialised technology, the exceptions they regularly make through simple necessity, are the use of cars to ferry people to hospital, and, of course, hospitals.
Technically, yes, but in practice they don't identify as the same groups and don't tend to intermarry all that much. They all have roughly the same Anabaptist beliefs, but the non-Amish Mennonites are -I believe- actually much more liberal in their use of technology, and they also tend to marry out more, and most Amish disapprove of how far they've drifted from the original doctrine. Within the Amish, there are also splits between Old Order, New Order, and Beachy Amish, with the latter two groups drifting towards use of technology.
One of my favorite folk musicians used to tell this great story about this Mennonite banjo player he studied with. Apparently the guy's son wanted to play electric guitar and was into this band called Nirvana or something and the guy just didn't know WHAT to make of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 06:30 pm (UTC)The Mormons, also, are an incredibly inbred population; there are about a half-dozen family lines, and they all marry into each other. As a consequence, the Mormons you don't see in public, ever, are the many who suffer from congenital blindness and dwarfism, or the ones who die young from other genetic diseases.
Although the Mormons are supposed to not rely on industrialised technology, the exceptions they regularly make through simple necessity, are the use of cars to ferry people to hospital, and, of course, hospitals.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 06:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 06:38 pm (UTC)Amish.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 03:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 10:40 am (UTC)