Maine passed a law abrogating religious exemptions for childhood immunizations. Passed before the Chinese Flu Plandemic, it became effective in 2021 and has since cut the number of exemption requests in half. We’ve posited that this is an unconstitutional violation, and now we may have some backup.
First, yes! There is a 117-year-old court precedent for mandatory vaccination (Jacobson v. Massachusetts) despite religious objections. But religious liberty has been enjoying a string of court victories in recent years. A legitimate challenge on suitable grounds with proper standing might move that needle.
Is this it?
The class action settlement against NorthShore University HealthSystem is on behalf of more than 500 current and former health care workers who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate, according to the non-profit religious rights law firm.
The NorthShore settlement would require them to offer jobs to everyone they fired (if they wanted them back) and a cash settlement totaling over ten million dollars.
As part of the settlement agreement, NorthShore will pay $10,337,500 to compensate hundreds of health care employees.
NorthShore will also change its unlawful “no religious accommodations” policy to make it consistent with the law, and to provide religious accommodations in every position across its numerous facilities. No position in any NorthShore facility will be considered off limits to unvaccinated employees with approved religious exemptions.
Liberty Counsel, representing the class, notes that this should “send a strong warning to employers.” Okay, let’s say it has and that this message is received. But what about state mandates upon employers? The US Supreme Court only managed to deny OSHA the power to mandate vaccines as an exercise in public health policy. Still, it allowed the Feds to mandate that millions of public health employees could be made to accept The Jab as a condition of employment.
Wait a minute. Didn’t you just say that a Hospital Conglomerate lost a lawsuit that required The Jab? I did!
And are they not likely to be receiving Federal money for this or that and therefore fall under the federal mandate upheld by the Court? Yes, but you can’t abolish religious exemptions, at least as far as I can tell, which is what NorthShore University HealthSystem did. It is why they lost.
So, what about States like Maine passing laws that invalidate a legitimate exemption of conscience? States can, as intended, do whatever the hell they please when it comes to vaccine mandates, and the Court has shown no interest in cases challenging them.
The Supreme Court this year has repeatedly declined to take up challenges to vaccine mandates in Maine, New York and at a public university in Indiana. Most of those cases were focused on whether states could impose such mandates without including an exemption for religious objections.
States appear to be off the hook, so the problem is not that NorthShore refused to acknowledge religious exemptions. The problem is that NorthShore is not a state that, for some strange reason, makes that right of conscience disappear.
Is there where we say, but what about the 14th Amendment?
If states have to be religiously neutral when it comes to blanket programs like education funding, why are they allowed to ignore the religious rights of students in those schools if the state says Jab them?
I’m sure it makes sense to somebody, but that somebody is not me.
HT | CBN.com