They make the argument that somehow, if the President issues an executive order to protect the First Amendment right to a religious exemption from vaccine mandates, that would endanger religious exemptions in the 46 states that have them. How this reversal is supposed to happen is not at all clear.
They are saying that since the federal government has done bad things in the past, everything the federal government could do now and going forward will be bad as well. They argue that only the state governments should have the responsibility of protecting religious liberties. As if state governments have not perpetrated and continue to perpetrate some of the most egregious attacks on our liberties, especially in regard to medical and religious freedom.
The First Amendment is part of the United States Constitution. The first duty of the President, Congress, and the federal courts is to protect the Constitution and the rights of the citizens guaranteed by the Constitution. States frequently, in all kinds of ways, impinge on people’s Constitutional rights, and sometimes the federal government takes action to stop that abuse.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1965 are examples of that. Not that long ago, many states enforced racial discrimination by law. It was largely federal action that ended that. Opponents of the Civil Rights bills of the 1960s argued that they were an unconstitutional usurpation of states’ rights.
We also have a law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that says, and the courts have upheld, that the United States government cannot participate or fund institutions that discriminate on the basis of religious belief.
This tirade online and on social media was triggered by a draft of an executive order circulated for discussion by some activists that called for the President to issue an executive order that any state that was engaging in religious discrimination by refusing religious exemptions from vaccine mandates to attend school would have to forfeit federal education money. This is exactly what RFRA allows.
States were not ordered to do anything. States’ rights would not be usurped by the federal government. It proposed action telling the states that the federal government could not support financially religious discrimination by a state. The President has issued many similar executive orders giving the states the choice to continue engaging in certain actions related to education and other functions or lose federal money to support those actions.
These organizations are telling residents of those states that do not have religious exemptions from vaccine mandates that denying children’s medical and religious rights is an acceptable trade-off as long as their abstract theories about states’ rights are preserved.
Remember, this is a draft document circulated for discussion, and it is about an executive order. An executive order is a statement by the President about how the executive branch will do things. It is not a law. It is not a regulation. It is a temporary directive that can be revoked at any time by the President who issued it or by subsequent Presidents.
Take Action:
Please use the panel to the right to send a message to the President urging him to consider issuing an executive order consistent with the Constitution and Federal law to stop federal funds from being used to support schools that practice religious discrimination by refusing to offer religious exemptions from vaccine mandates.
Statements issued by the groups and individuals raise many questions about what they believe the role of the federal government is in protecting and advancing health freedom, and protecting fundamental rights.
After decades of work, we finally have a President who is sympathetic to health freedom and a Secretary of Health and Human Services whose name is almost synonymous with health freedom. What should they do?
Should we follow the lead of these critics and abandon any federal efforts to stop religious discrimination by the states?
What other federal action should we abandon?
Should we abandon the goal of a federal ban on medical mandates and leave that to the states?
Should we abandon efforts to restore our right to sue in court for vaccine injuries?
Should the President revoke his executive order banning COVID mandates in schools?
Should we rejoin the World Health Organization?
Should we put the COVID injection back on the CDC schedule for children and pregnant women?
Should the executive order to rehire military personnel fired for refusing the COVID injection be rescinded?
Should the federal courts reconsider their decision to block Biden’s COVID mandate for all employees?
Should the federal government restore the gain-of-function program?
There are thousands of other actions we need to reform our medical services and products industry and protect and expand our fundamental rights that only the federal government can undertake.
Now is hardly the time for us to abandon federal action.