Court Targets Amish Families for Persecution

   Eau Claire County Circuit Court Judge Kristen Bourget agreed to grant a stay from her March 23  ruling, which directed the sheriff to remove an Amish family from their home in rural Fairchild, Wisconsin, while attorney Matthew Krische appeals the order.
   “They couldn’t it believe it. They’ve lived months and months and months under the threat of someone coming to their house and evicting them,” said Mr. Woods, one of many non-Amish neighbors who have rallied around Amos and Vera Borntreger.
   The abeyance ruling came a day after Eau Claire County sheriff’s officers stapled a placard to the front door declaring the home unfit for human habitation and blocked it with police tape, saying they would return in a week.
   Neighbors, friends and supporters are collecting signatures for a petition calling on the state legislature and Wisconsin Builders Association to support a religious exemption from the Uniform Dwelling Code.
   The Borntregers, who have four children under the age of six (including a child six months old) and belong to the Old Order Amish, had refused to sign electrical and sanitary building permits requiring modern devices such as smoke alarms, carbon-monoxide detectors and indoor plumbing.
   On March 23, in a packed courtroom that included 27 Old Order Amish men and several members of the community, Circuit Court Judge Kristina ...