They won't go to war or pledge to the flag or celebrate their birthdays. They refuse blood transfusions, and they spend long days going door to door, politely offering their religious literature.
The Jehovah's Witnesses often seem wildly out of step with society, yet over the 125 years since the group was founded in Pittsburgh, it has been a crucial player in court cases that have defined religious freedom in the United States and abroad.
The case decided yesterday in Moscow City Court in which an official ban on the group was upheld is the latest in a long line of court actions in which Jehovah's Witnesses have defended their right to pursue practices that many governments and individuals don't care for.
Though they lost this round, the Witnesses are taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The legions of dedicated Witnesses offering The Watchtower and Awake to potential converts are backed by a high-powered legal staff that has a long legacy of taking on powerful opponents in court and winning.
A raft of significant cases on First Amendment issues have been brought by Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States, and they have been active in international courts as well.
Jehovah's Witnesses grew out of a movement begun in Pittsburgh in the 1870s by Charles Taze Russell. Russell was born in 1852 and was brought up a Congregationalist. He strongly opposed those teachings and rejected organized religion in general.
He started a Bible study class at 18, beginning to articulate the set of beliefs that would put the Russellites, as they were first known, on a collision course with the government, other religious groups and social norms.
His successor, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, continued to elucidate the beliefs that formed the core of the organization's religious philosophy: a rejection of elements of Christian Orthodoxy such as the Trinity; a belief in the Bible as the sole source of religious teaching; a strong focus on the second coming; an organization that eschewed a separate clergy; a requirement that members evangelize; and complete allegiance to the church rather than to the state.
Now based in Brooklyn, N.Y., it claims more than 6 million members worldwide. Since 1926, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania has published more than 124 million copies of the Bible in 45 languages. About 25 million copies of the main Jehovah's Witness publication, The Watchtower, are published twice a month, according to spokeswoman April Taylor.
Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves Christian but are not regarded as Christian by Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox. They have been criticized for their refusal to accept medical care for members, for harsh treatment of women, children and members who have broken rules, and for their refusal to comply with rules or laws because of their beliefs.
The belief of Jehovah's Witnesses that they owe allegiance to God, not a government, has meant that they have come into conflict for refusing to serve in the military, to pledge allegiance or to desist from evangelizing.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Jehovah's Witnesses went to court several times in a series of high-profile cases to secure their right to refuse to pledge allegiance and to evangelize free of governmental restrictions.
In a 1943 decision in Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court ruled that the borough of Jeannette could not demand that Jehovah's Witnesses get a soliciting permit in order to go door to door. The state had argued that because they offered pamphlets and solicited donations, they were selling a product.
The right to proselytize was affirmed in another case in 2002, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York Inc., et al. v. Village of Stratton [Ohio], in which the Supreme Court struck down a requirement that solicitors get clearance by the mayor.
Another 1943 decision reversed a 1940 ruling in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, in which the Supreme Court had rejected the argument that two children had the right to refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance because it violated their religious beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court said that religious freedom did indeed allow individuals to decline to pledge allegiance.
Jehovah's Witnesses have faced similar problems in other countries, said James Andrik, an attorney for the group.
Members faced discrimination and repression in the Soviet Union; after easing up briefly in the early 1990s, the government in Moscow soon began to come down hard on them again. In Georgia, it has been even worse; members there have been attacked and subjected to official repression. Jehovah's Witnesses in Africa have also faced opposition and discrimination.
In all cases, they have battled in court.
The court cases come because the mission of the Jehovah's Witnesses is to witness, Andrik said, and that frequently puts them at odds with governments and other sources of power, such as other religious groups. But it hasn't meant that they don't use the tools of the temporal world to advance their cause.
The edict from the book of Matthew -- "This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth" -- is taken very seriously by the Jehovah's Witnesses, he said.
"We try to follow the scriptures to the T. That's our priority," he said. "Then, of course, we use the laws that advance religious freedom to achieve that goal."
Over the years, he said, that has often meant going to court to see that concepts enunciated on paper but not followed in practice are made to do so.
"It's interesting in this country, and in many countries throughout the world, constitutions are great, but often don't have the 'meat' on them that's needed. That's why we end up in court so often," Andrik said. "We feel we need to talk to people about this message, and we end up putting meat on constitutions along the way."