Free Republic

Two service members have been denied religious exemptions to the flu vaccine and are at risk of being forced out of the military after they previously fought the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. A service member in the Marine Corps and another in the Air Force are facing separation from their respective military branches after submitting Religious Accommodation Requests (RARs) for the flu shot. Both men objected to the COVID vaccine mandate under the Biden administration and ultimately kept their jobs, but they may lose them under President Trump despite the routine approval of religious exemptions for vaccines before COVID. Marine First...

Corporation cited for illegal religious discrimination.. A hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., has agreed to pay a settlement to a job applicant who had been offered a position, but then was arbitrarily rejected because he declined to take a flu shot hospital officials demanded. ... The fight involved Trinity Health Grand Rapids, which previously was known as Mercy Health St. Mary's. The resolution includes a consent decree that allows paying of some $50,000 to the worker who was rejected. The case originally was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and charged the hospital improperly denied a job applicant’s...

A District Court judge has denied Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) request to halt the First Amendment lawsuit filed against her administration by Maine healthcare workers concerning the State’s enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In a ruling last week, Judge Jon D. Levy of the Maine District Court denied a motion to stay filed on behalf of Mills and several other officials in her cabinet. The lawsuit in question — Alicia Lowe, et al., v. Janet Mills, et al. — alleges that the State of Maine violated healthcare workers’ First Amendment rights by refusing to allow a religious exemption to...

The Department of Homeland Security is at least the 20th federal agency to have created or proposed tracking lists for employees requesting religious accommodations from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.A rule placed in the Federal Register on Friday allows the DHS “to collect and maintain records on employees and applicants for employment” that are seeking certain religious and medical accommodations. A vaccine mandate remains in place for the federal workforce.“This notice also clarifies DHS’s collection, use, maintenance, and dissemination of records needed to process, manage, maintain, and resolve reasonable accommodation requests based on a medical condition/disability or a sincerely held religious...

As millions of vaccines go in arms across the county, federal employees who refuse citing a religious exemption are quietly being entered into an online database. Fox News looked through the records, and the Departments of Justice, Interior, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation are just a few agencies taking part in the collection. "It's not surprising that the government is keeping a record of religious exemptions. The government does have to track its workforce," George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley said. For example, the Department of Transportation database "includes requests for a medical or religious accommodation to...

A top infectious disease doctor has raised alarm about COVID-19 vaccine mandates despite top federal officials recommending them for businesses, schools, and other institutions.Dr. Matthew Memoli, who runs a clinical studies unit within the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci—is scheduled to argue against COVID-19 vaccine mandates during a Dec. 1 seminar hosted by the agency , according to David Wendler, a senior NIH bioethicist who is planning the seminar.“There’s a lot of debate within the NIH about whether [a vaccine mandate] is appropriate,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s...

Spokane Public Schools approved and accommodated every single religious exemption request made by its employees.More than 350 pages of exemption requests came from Spokane Public School employees and 4 News Now dug through them. The requests listed their belief in God and bodily autonomy as reasons for not getting the shot. Requests from employees included letters from their pastors. Most cited a pro-life stance. The majority of worker statements said aborted fetal cells are used in the vaccines and their production. They believe getting the vaccine would go against God. Jesse Erasmus is an assistant professor at the University of...

Health care workers in New York State who don’t want to get the COVID-19 vaccine because of religious concerns can continue to do so, under a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday by a federal judge. Gov. Kathy Hochul began requiring workers at hospitals and nursing homes to be vaccinated on Sept. 27 and more recently expanded the requirement to include workers at assisted living homes, hospice care and treatment centers and home health aides. Her administration — and many religious leaders — contend there is no religious requirement against getting vaccinated. Pope Francis, for example, has encouraged people to get the...

There’s a legal threshold that religious people must achieve in order to be exempted from a vaccine, or any other mandate by the government. It’s the “sincerely held belief” threshold and government and public health officials are preparing to challenge that by basically saying that those people who invoke the “sincerely held belief” standard are lying.Others believe that there is danger in stretching the meaning of a religious exemption by not questioning those who seek to use it.Admittedly, the standard is vague. But in addition to a reasonable definition of “sincerely held,” most supporters of the exemption think that abusing...

State officials on Wednesday published new guidance for public school faculty and staffers who plan to seek a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine as the deadline for the required vaccinations nears. A new form was released that asks several questions for those who are applying for the exemption. The form's questions to state workers include: "You assert that you have a sincerely held religious belief or religious conviction that prevents you from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.. Yes or no?" The second question is the most controversial. “You affirm/agree that you have never received a vaccine or medicine from a...

Family member needs a religious exemption/waiver for work. Employer mandating all employees--even remote workers-- get the jab. Does anyone have links, suggestions, or examples of successful waivers? It would be very much appreciated!

Service members who want a vaccine exemption will be required to seek counseling regarding their decision.. The Pentagon on Tuesday released guidelines for how service members could request a religious exemption in lieu of getting the coronavirus vaccine. ... "There is a religious exemption possibility for any mandatory vaccine, and there's a process that we go through to counsel the individual both from a medical and from a command perspective about using a religious exemption," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday. Kirby said military service members who wish to seek an exemption will be required to be counseled by...

I've seen a lot of misunderstanding about what constitutes a "religious" exemption for the purposes of a work-related vaccine mandate. I finally registered after years of just browsing and reading to share this. Please review this information and help educate others! A religious exemption extends to a deeply held and sincere spiritual, ethical, or moral belief. That means that a strong spiritual belief, whether from within an organized and recognized religion or one that is formed without an organized and recognized religion can qualify. Additionally, moral or ethical beliefs qualify if held and believed with the strength of what one...

A prominent Chabad rabbi is offering to give religious exemption waivers to help anyone of any faith avoid having to take the “yellow star” of mandatory vaccinations.Rabbi Michoel Green appeared on Big League Politics Live where he talked about the oppression he has endured for opposing COVID-19 lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations. He is galvanizing patriots in his Hasidic community as well as the rest of America to resist experimental COVID-19 vaccinations.“I’ve reached out to fellow patriots. People of all kinds. We have to network and we have to be willing to stand up for each other,” Green said.“One thing I’ve...

A contentious bill that would end Connecticut’s long-standing religious exemption from immunization requirements for schools, beginning with the 2022-23 school year, now awaits action in the state Senate. The legislation passed on a 90-53 vote in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives just before 3 a.m. on Tuesday, following more than 16 hours of sometimes combative debate. No date has been set yet for when the Senate, which is also controlled by Democrats, will vote on the same bill. The House vote marked the furthest the legislation has progressed in Connecticut, where lawmakers have debated the concept over the past several...

In F.F. v. State of New York, (App. Div., March 18, 2021), a New York state appellate court rejected parents' constitutional challenges to New York's repeal of the religious exemption from mandatory vaccination for school children. The court upheld the repeal, finding that it was a neutral law of general applicability prompted by the measles outbreak, even though the repeal eliminated a religious exemption. The court said in part: [W]e do not find that the timing of the repeal reveals political or ideological motivation; rather, the record reflects that the repeal simply worked its way through the basic legislative process...

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in a 159-page Release (full text) adopted amendments defining expansively the religious exemption in the agency's rules imposing anti-discrimination requirements on government contractors and subcontractors. The agency's rules incorporate Executive Order 11246 which imposes non-discrimination and equal treatment requirements for employees of the contractor or subcontractor. The Executive Order bars discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. However there is an exemption for: a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society, with respect to the employment of individuals of...

A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a block against the Trump administration’s religious exemption to the HHS’s contraceptive mandate. In January, Judge Haywood Gilliam of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an injunction against the new rules on contraception coverage, which allowed employers to opt out of providing birth control and abortion-inducing drugs in their health insurance plans if it violated their religious or moral beliefs. In a 2-1 decision released Tuesday, the majority decided to uphold Gilliam’s injunction banning enforcement of the religious exemption...

Religious objection to union dues not limited to a few by The HR Specialist: Ohio Employment Law on August 3, 2007 12:00am in Employment Law,Human Resources,Small Business Tax,Small Business Tax Deduction Strategies An Ohio public employee collective-bargaining law exemption that allows workers to forgo paying union dues because of religious beliefs has been applied too narrowly, the U.S. District Court, Southern District, has decided. A Roman Catholic woman, who objected to her union’s support of abortion rights, sued the Ohio State Employment Relations Board for access to the exemption, which the board denied. The statute allows some workers to make...

MyFoxNY.com -- A Long Island couple knew that getting married was expensive. What they didn't count on was the priest planning to charge them extra for living together. Fox 5's Arnold Diaz exposes a so-called 'fornication fee'. A Long Island couple knew that getting married was going to be expensive. But what they didn't count on was that the priest was going to charge them extra for living together.