Anti-vaxxers often cite religious exemptions. Experts say there’s a simple way to cut down on the abuse.
No major religions have expressed anything but support for the vaccine, but the rising number of vaccine mandates across the United States has spurred both the faithful and faith leaders to seek out and promote religious exemptions for the vaccine. While people like Locke make the concept sound simple, the reality is that there are no standard practices for determining or even allowing religious exemptions to vaccines.
When businesses implement vaccine mandates for their employees, they are coming up with policies on the fly. Many add in language about a religious exemption on the advice of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has recommended that employers make reasonable efforts to accommodate employees with “sincerely held religious beliefs” to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
over the vaccine mandates, it wouldn’t be surprising if some businesses opted to offer exemptions to avoid getting lawyers involved.In the public sphere, things are similarly vague. Many states already have statutes guaranteeing religious exemptions for vaccines. When it came to mandates for public schools and government employees, the exemptions were often automatically built in. The U.S.
According to legal experts, it’s still an open question if anyone has to offer religious exemptions. While some argue that Title VII protections for employees include allowing religious exemptions for vaccines, others argue that an employer only has to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs if they do not amount to an undue hardship—a caveat that could certainly be applied to the heightened risk of transmitting COVID.
religious exemptions letters, he insisted they were “issued to individuals who have a sincere belief.”Making it all harder, courts have said a person’s religious beliefs don’t have to align with the institution’s official doctrine. “The way the law is makes policing this a nightmare,” said Reiss. “You’re not there to enforce the rules of the religion. You also can’t assess whether their belief makes sense. The question is, are they sincere, not rational.
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