Free Republic

District Judge Halil "Sul" Ozerden's ruling leaves only five states that mandate shots without religious exemptions on kids.GULFPORT, Mississippi (LifeSiteNews) — Mississippi officials must allow students to obtain religious exemptions from vaccine mandates, a federal judge ruled recently. The southern state had remained one of only two red states that did not offer religious exemptions from school shot mandates. The other is West Virginia. District Judge Halil “Sul” Ozerden ruled on April 18 that the state’s health officer and a handful of local school district officials were “enjoined from enforcing Mississippi’s school compulsory vaccination law…unless they provide an option for...

Federal judges are not historians, but they are increasingly obligated to play them on the bench. In his Bruen decision last June, Justice Clarence Thomas ordered courts to assess the constitutionality of modern-day gun restrictions by searching for “historical analogues” from 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. Ever since, judges have struggled mightily with this task—in part because most have no training in real historical analysis, but also because the record is often spotty and contradictory. In light of Bruen’s maximalist language, they have erred on the side of gun owners, finding a constitutional right to buy a gun...