Amish Community Wins Case Saying Septic Tanks Against Religious Beliefs

An Amish community has won a long-running legal battle after its members refused to obey county orders to install septic tanks due to their religious objections to using the technology.

Minnesota's Court of Appeals agreed that the deeply conservative group had the religious freedom to use their traditional methods for disposing of their "gray" water (which is water that's been used for laundry, bathing, or dishwashing; it does not include water used for toilet waste).

The Swartzentruber Amish have always poured such water away directly into the ground. Consequently, they found themselves at odds with Fillmore County, which has required homes to have modern septic systems to dispose of gray water since 2013 in a bid to protect the area's groundwater. The Amish were opposed to the technology and offered to pour their gray water through basins filled with wood chips to filter it first, but officials argued the method wasn't effective.

The dispute, which pitted religious beliefs against legal rulings, comes amid a spate of such tussles regarding legislation across the U.S. Just last month, for example, the Supreme Court was split over a controversial case involving a designer from Colorado who didn't want to create wedding websites for gay couples due to her Christian beliefs; the court ruled in her favor.

The court had previously ruled in 2018 that a Colorado baker had the constitutional right to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple due to his religious beliefs. And the U.S. Supreme Court will also soon deliver its ruling in the case of a Christian mailman who refused to work on Sundays.

In the latest ruling, relating to the Amish this week, a three-judge panel ruled that the government had "failed to demonstrate a compelling state interest" to justify overriding the religious freedom of the Amish families, according to local news website TwinCities.com.

The judges noted that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch had previously stated in a 2021 ruling that the Swartzentruber Amish in southeastern Minnesota are among the most traditional Amish groups in the country. Governments are prohibited "from infringing sincerely held religious beliefs and practices except as a last resort," he said at the time, before the case was returned to Minnesota judges. "In this country, neither the Amish nor anyone else should have to choose between their farms and their faith."

The case had been batted back-and-forth between the courts over the course of the dispute, which was first brought by the Amish back in 2017 and made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. That court sent the case back to the Minnesota courts for reconsideration, after an unrelated high court ruling in favor of a Catholic foster care agency in Philadelphia that refused to work with gay couples on religious grounds. But in September last year, a Minnesota district court again ruled there was a state interest in insisting that the Amish must use septic tanks for gray water. The community appealed again, and finally won their case in the Court of Appeals on Monday.

The judges noted that the Swartzentruber Amish follow strict beliefs on technology, and don't have cars, telephones, electric lights, or modern flush toilets. They have always prohibited septic systems.

Newsweek has reached out by email to the office of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz seeking a comment on the ruling.