"Amish Terror" Ends with Samuel Mullet & 15 of His Followers Convicted of Hate Crimes

66-year old convicted Amish sect leader Samuel Mullet

Self-proclaimed Amish Bishop Samuel Mullet represents the rare exception to the tranquil image of the Amish as a peace-loving, deeply spiritual people opposed to violence in all forms.

A recent Federal court ruling will ensure that he and 15 of his followers, including three of his sons and his daughter, have become the first defendants in Ohio to be found guilty of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act founded in 2009.

The Matthew Shepard Act, as it's commonly known, was named for Shepard, who was tortured and killed in Wyoming in 1998 because he was targeted as a homosexual, and for James Byrd Jr.; an innocent African-American man who was famously tied to a truck by two known White Supremacists, dragged to his death and decapitated near Jasper, Texas in the same year. 

The perverse sickness of both cases shocked the world and drew widespread media coverage to the growing problem of hate crime violence in the United States. It's kind of interesting that the first people to be found guilty under the federal law enacted in the wake of such horrific crimes in Ohio are a group of Amish.

Even though the now-infamous forcible beard-cutting by Samuel Mullet and members of his strict, breakaway sect of Amish drew intense global media coverage, it runs contrary to the pacifist beliefs and devotion to a more simple and modest way of life of the vast majority of Amish and Mennonite communities in America. It's a pretty strange case, not just because the Amish way of life is so strange and mysterious to most Americans but also because it's a sobering reminder that hate comes in many forms.