A bishop behind bars

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Sam Mullet, the renegade Amish bishop convicted on federal hate crime charges for his role in a series of beard-cutting attacks last year, has earned an unlikely nickname in prison.

Among his fellow inmates at Northern Ohio Correctional Center, the towering 67-year-old with wire-rimmed glasses, pudding-bowl haircut and retro facial hair is known simply as “O.G.”

While the term — street shorthand for “original gangster” — was unfamiliar to Mullet, he could sense that it was a compliment bestowed from across cultural lines.

“They’re calling me O.G.,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know what it means, but I guess it means something good.”

Unexpected honorific aside, he didn’t pretend to be comfortable in his new home. “I’m a stranger here. Plus Amish to boot,” he told The Daily last month in the first in-depth interview he has ever given. “How would you feel coming to Amish country and being locked up? You see guys in here with all kinds of dress and all kinds of hairstyles, but I’m the one that’s weird and sticking out.”

Man, I got into this debate on another board about this and I do stand corrected on the disabled girl case. Still, when I stated my opposition to "hate crime laws," one lib branded me as a Nazi and me calling him a cripple because I'm against it. It's as bad as The Race Card. I learned, one thing, there is no reasoning with the left. They understand only two things, force and the threat of force. Reagan understood that.

I did add in my reply, if you want to see true Nazis, just try Obamacare in a few years an the death panels. My grandfather fought the Nazis from Omaha Beach to Buchenwald. I'm part Russian Jew. Well, I'll just go on, he violated "Godwins Law."

It's like trying to reason with a shark, you reach out and get a bloody stump in return and the shark's happy.

I hope one day, they all have an epiphany, a "come to Jesus moment" if you will but I'll leave it up to Him for that, sometimes I think we just need to dig in and see what happens.

No one should go through having their beard cut or being harrassed like that poor girl, but we must use existing laws and not succumb to emotion over reason to trump over the Constitution.

Basically, it’s harassment getting lumped in with whatever the other crime is. Just call it harassment and it’ll be treated more fairly. There is no sense in “throwing away the key” for this.

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