Only five states — California, Connecticut, Maine, New York and West Virginia — have allowed no non-medical exemptions, according to the conference, but West Virginia is taking steps this year to allow religious or philosophical exemptions.
Many other North American Amish and Mennonites trace their roots to immigration directly from Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, said Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.
The Mennonite population being affected by a measles outbreak in West Texas is part of a larger, loosely affiliated group of churches worldwide with varied beliefs and leadership structures — and with sometimes strained or distant relations with health officials and other public authorities.
In contrast, the Seminole area includes a community of Old Colony Mennonites, which has a much more circuitous history of migration, Nolt said.
Early Anabaptists suffered persecution and martyrdom under Catholic and Protestant rulers in Europe, a history that still influences some groups today in their suspicion of governmental authorities, including public health officials.
