The executive order would compel the five remaining states in the US that do not offer religious exemptions from vaccine mandates to attend school (New York, California, Maine, Connecticut and West Virginia) to choose between continuing to deny religious exemptions or face potential consequences.
The consequences are not specified but would likely include the loss of federal funds, which was the penalty states faced in an earlier executive order that prohibited states form requiring COVID shots to attend school.
The letter recognizes that Americans have a First Amendment right to raise our children in accord with our religious beliefs.
TAKE ACTION
Please use the panel to the right to send a message to the President requesting that he issue an executive order requiring states to offer religious exemptions.
And please call the Whitehouse and leave a message requesting that the president issue the executive order.
BACKGROUND
In 2015 only two states. West Virginia and Mississippi, did not offer a religious or personal belief exemption from vaccine mandates to attend school. Beginning in 2015 in California, a nationwide campaign began to repeal religious or personal conscience exemptions. Bills were introduced in Colorado, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Illinois, Rhode Island, Vermont, South Dakota, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Maryland, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Ohio, but except for California, none were passed.
Not only is the denial of religious exemptions out of step with the vast majority of states, it is inconsistent with the standards of wealthy, western democracies parents retain the ultimate authority to decide what vaccines their child receives without coercion from the State or the loss of essential public services like access to education or healthcare, including, the UK, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Spain, and Canada.
New York repealed its religious exemption in 2019. Maine and Connecticut followed in 2021, repealing their religious exemptions in a heavy-handed response to COVID.
However, in 2023, a US District Court in Mississippi held that the lack of a religious exemption was a form of religious discrimination, and Mississippi, for the first time since the 1970s began offering a religious exemption.
Clearly, with 45 states offering religious exemptions, this right is well within the accepted understanding of religious liberty in the United Sates. The 5 states that do not protect this essential right are outliers that need to be directed back to the American mainstream.
Issuing an executive order that the members of Congress call for is an excellent way to show these states the way forward.
Read the letter here: