No major religious denomination opposes vaccination, but religious exemptions can further complicate mandates

“I have a feeling that not many people will want to fight over this topic,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, infectious disease expert and professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

The full approval by the Food and Drug Administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on August 23 could take the problem to a critical point. Many government agencies, healthcare providers, colleges and the military were waiting for this decision before implementing the warrants.

Nothing in the story suggests that a large number of students or staff will seek such a solution – but then, no previous conversation about the vaccine has been as overtly politicized as the one around covid.

“This country is going to pass mandates. That’s right. All other alternatives have been tried,” said Dr Monica Gandhi, infectious disease expert at UC-San Francisco. “This phrase, ‘religious exemption,’ is very important. But it will be quite difficult in the current climate – in a mass health crisis, with a vaccine in place that works – to drop such religious claims.”

Indeed, while anti-vaccine pop-up churches have long offered reluctant parents ways to exempt their children from vaccines, nowadays churches, internet-based religious businesses and others seem to be offering wholesale. covid vaccination exemptions.

Still, the Vatican has deemed it “morally acceptable” to be vaccinated against covid. In fact, Pope Francis has declared it “the moral choice because it is about your life but also about the lives of others”. In a growing number of dioceses – Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York, among others – bishops have asked priests and deacons not to sign any letter that lends the church’s imprimatur to a request for religious exemption. .

Schmedes did not respond to questions posed by KHN via email.

In the town of Rocklin, in the Sacramento area, a church that openly defied Newsom’s shutdown orders last year distributed hundreds of exemption letters. Greg Fairrington, pastor of Destiny Christian Church, told attendees at a church service: “No one should be able to demand that you have to get vaccinated or you will lose your job. America.”

EEOC guidelines suggest that employers make “reasonable accommodation” to those who have a sincere religious objection to a workplace rule. This may mean moving an unvaccinated employee to a secluded part of the office, or from a forward-facing position to one that involves less people-to-people contact. But the employer is not required to do anything that results in undue hardship or more than a “de minimis” cost.

As to the objection itself, the committee’s opinion is vague. Employers “should normally assume that an employee’s request for religious accommodation is based on a sincere religious belief,” says the EEOC. Employers have the right to request supporting documentation, but employees’ religious beliefs should not depend on specific or organized faith.

The distinction between religion and ideology is blurring among those who seek exemptions. In Turlock, Calif., A preschool teacher received a letter of exemption from her pastor, who offered the documents to those who thought taking a vaccine was “morally compromising.” Asked by KHN via a direct message why she requested the exemption, the woman said she did not feel comfortable being vaccinated because of “what’s in the vaccine,” then added: “Personally, I am on ‘Covid’ and the control the government is trying to implement on us!” Like other exemption seekers, even those who posted to anti-vaccine Facebook groups, she was concerned that other people would know she had requested an exemption.

A surgical technician working at Dignity Health, who ordered her employees to be fully immunized by November 1, said she was awaiting a response from the company’s human resources department on her request for a religious exemption. She freely explained her reasons for applying, referring to two passages from the Bible and listing the ingredients of the vaccines she declared “harmful to the human body”. But she didn’t want anyone to know that she had requested the religious exemption.

A state’s right to require vaccination is a law established since a 1905 Supreme Court ruling that upheld mandatory smallpox vaccination in Massachusetts. Legal experts say this right has been upheld on several occasions, including in a 1990 Supreme Court ruling that religiously motivated actions are not isolated from laws, unless a law designates religion for disadvantaged treatment. In August, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett refused, without comment, to challenge Indiana University’s rule that all students, staff and faculty should be vaccinated.

“Under current law, it is clear that no religious exemption is required,” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC-Berkeley law school, told KHN. Obviously, that doesn’t stop people looking for one.