suggestion for religious vaccine exemption letter

Suggestion for religious vaccine exemption letter full#

That might mean moving an unvaccinated employee to an isolated part of the office, or from a forward-facing position to one that involves less interpersonal contact. That’s just not right, here in America.”ĮEOC guidelines suggest that employers make a “reasonable accommodation” to those with a sincerely held religious objection to a workplace rule. Greg Fairrington, pastor of Destiny Christian Church, told attendees at a church service: “Nobody should be able to mandate that you have to take a vaccine or you lose your job. In the Sacramento-area city of Rocklin, meanwhile, a church that openly defied Newsom’s COVID-19 shutdown orders last year has handed out hundreds of exemption letters. One U.S.-distributed vaccine, the Johnson & Johnson product, is made using a cell culture that partly originated in retinal cells from a fetus aborted in 1985. 19 Facebook post to direct healthcare workers “with a religious belief that abortion is immoral” to a site that attempts to catalog the use of cells from aborted fetuses to test or produce various COVID-19 vaccines. Gregg Schmedes, a Republican state senator and otolaryngologist in New Mexico, used an Aug.

Indeed, while pop-up anti-vaccine churches have long offered reluctant parents ways to exempt their kids from shots, these days churches, internet-based religious businesses and others seem to be offering COVID vaccination exemptions wholesale.ĭr. But it’s going to be quite hard in the current climate - in a mass health crisis, with a vaccine in place that works - to just let any such religious claims go.” “That phrase, ‘religious exemption,’ is very big. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco. Every other alternative has been tried,” said Dr. Nothing in history suggests that a large number of students or staff members will seek such an out - but then, no previous vaccination conversation has been as overtly politicized as the one around COVID-19. But like many other businesses, it makes room for those who wish to request an exemption “on medical, disability or religious grounds,” adding that it is required by law to do so. UC is requiring proof of vaccination for all staffers and students across its 10 campuses, a decision that potentially affects half a million people. 11 for all teachers and staff at both public and private schools.Ĭalifornia Data breach reveals Chico State students seeking vaccine exemptions on religious groundsĪ document from Chico State shows a majority of students seeking exemptions were on religious grounds. Gavin Newsom’s July 26 order for state employees and healthcare workers to be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly testing was the first of its kind, as was a similar declaration Aug. Many government agencies, healthcare providers, colleges and the military had been awaiting the move before enforcing mandates.Ĭalifornia, which abolished nonmedical exemptions for childhood vaccination in 2015, has led the way on COVID vaccine mandates.ĭemocratic Gov.

Suggestion for religious vaccine exemption letter full#

The Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Aug. John Swartzberg, an expert on infectious diseases and professor at UC Berkeley. “I have a feeling that not a lot of people are going to want to fight on this topic,” said Dr. As a result, some experts predict most employers and administrators won’t want to challenge such objections from their employees. Still, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission grants broad leeway to what constitutes a sincerely held religious belief. Many seem willing to cater to people who reject vaccination for another reason. Although individual clergy members have mounted the anti-vaccine bandwagon, they have no obvious justification in religious texts for their positions. It counsels “respect for public health authorities and conscientious obedience to the laws of the land, including those requiring vaccination.”Īnd if a person claims their privately held religious beliefs forbid vaccination, that defense is unlikely to hold up in court if challenged, legal experts say. Even the Christian Science Church, whose adherents rely largely on prayer rather than medicine, does not impose an official policy. No major denomination opposes vaccination. With workplace vaccination mandates in the offing, opponents are turning to a tried-and-true recourse for avoiding a COVID-19 shot: the claim that vaccination interferes with religious beliefs. And a Texas-based evangelist offers exemption letters to anyone - for a suggested “donation” starting at $25. A New Mexico state senator will “help you articulate a religious exemption” by pointing to the decades-old use of aborted fetal cells in the development of some vaccines. In Northern California, the pastor of a megachurch hands out religious exemption forms to the faithful.