Shaving a man's beard without his permission is just asking for trouble. Normally the newly baby faced man would probably just beat you into submission himself, but in this case, Samuel Mullet Sr. and 15 followers of his breakaway-former-Amish-sect are being charged with hate crimes after attacking a number of families back in October 2011.

Last October, Myron Miller was 'grabbed by his beard and forced out [his] front door' by a group of four to six men. Miller, the bishop for the Mechanicstown Amish church in eastern Ohio, says the attackers weren't able to cut off his entire beard, but did cut a chunk out with scissors before he was able to get away. Miller, in addition to another man who was assaulted on the same night, have decided to press criminal charges, which according to Donald Kraybill, a professor at Elizabethtown College and an expert on Amish life, 'conflicts with their religious beliefs'.

They're calling it Amish-on-Amish crime, but I think the bigger problem is beard-on-beard crime. Beard envy. It's a growing issue.

Cutting the victims' beards is degrading and insulting in the Amish culture. The Amish believe the Bible instructs men to wear beards and stop shaving once they marry and for women grow their hair long.

"Wearing a beard is a common and required practice for all married Amish men," Kraybill said. "Likewise, women do not cut their hair based on biblical teaching. These appear to be malicious assaults on symbols of Amish identity by a renegade little group of Amish origin who, for whatever reason, have been estranged from other Amish groups."

[Via ABC News]

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