Religious vaccine objections surge in some quarters

Six Los Angeles Police Department officers challenged aspects of the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate last week. They accuse the city of obstructing employee requests for religious exemptions to the mandate and intimidating unvaccinated officers.

In the federal lawsuit filed Sept. 11, the six officers offer a bevy of complaints—from allegations that the vaccine requirement violates due process by infringing on their “bodily integrity” to the policy’s failure to account for the natural immunity of those who have recovered from COVID-19. But the sharpest challenge is to the police department’s process—or lack thereof—for religious exemption requests.

Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an ordinance last month requiring all city employees to be vaccinated by Oct. 20 unless they have secured a medical or religious exemption. But the officers say the city provided no process for submitting requests and, when it finally opened an online portal, gave them only 72 hours to submit them.

Processing the exemptions is no small task. LAPD has upwards of 2,600 religious exemption applications, accounting for nearly a quarter of its workforce, reports The Los Angeles Times. That suggests either a highly religious workforce or, as some contend, rampant abuse of the exemption.

That trend is not limited to the LAPD. Nearly 100 Washington state troopers, healthcare workers, and firefighters filed a lawsuit on Sept. 10 accusing officials of unfairly requiring them to submit a questionnaire on religious sentiment, belief, and worship in order to get a vaccine exemption.

The reasons religious people object to receiving the coronavirus vaccine vary. Many objections stem from the vaccines’ connections to cell lines developed from the tissue of aborted babies. Pfizer and Moderna did not use fetal cell lines in the manufacture of their mRNA vaccines, but they did use them in their tests. Moderna exclusively produces mRNA vaccines, but Pfizer does other drug research on embryonic stem cells. Some pro-lifers object to supporting the company in any way, including by obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine. Attenuated virus shots such as the one made by Johnson & Johnson do use fetal cells in the manufacturing process.

Constitutional law experts agree employers risk lawsuits by challenging the sincerity of workers’ religious beliefs. “It’s very difficult to investigate sincerity,” University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock told WBEZ-FM in Chicago. “How do you decide what someone really believes in their heart of hearts about religion?”

Tightening requirements or even eliminating exemption requests may not make much difference. One study of the vaccination rate of California schoolchildren found it didn’t significantly change before and after the state removed a religious exemption. People find other ways such as medical exemptions to avoid the vaccine. Some also believe providing exemptions channels religious, medical, and broader fears and concerns in a less disruptive way.

No hearing is scheduled on the LAPD officers’ request for a court order forcing the police department to accept all medical and religious exemptions.