Appeals Court: No First Amendment Right to Religious Exemption From Vaccine Mandate
The appeals court also rejected the plaintiffs’ privacy and medical freedom, equal protection, and childrearing arguments.
A federal appeals court ruled in Connecticut’s favor in a dispute over the state’s removal of the religious exemption to its vaccine mandate. Connecticut law mandates vaccinations for “schoolchildren, college and university students, and childcare participants.”
The plaintiffs objected on religious grounds “to us[ing] or benefit[ing] from the use of aborted fetal cells” from stem cell lines used to produce some vaccines.
The three-judge panel of the Second Circuit held 2–1 that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause does not require a state to provide a religious exemption. The appeals court found the law constitutional because it was neutral, generally applicable, and rationally related to the state’s public health goals.
Connecticut offered a religious exemption until 2021, when “Connecticut became the fifth State to” eliminate its religious exemption. The state, however, kept its exemption for individuals when vaccination is medically contraindicated.
Connecticut cited public health concerns as justification for removing the religious exemption, pointing to data showing a dramatic increase in the number of religious exemptions. The increase in religious exemptions, coupled with their uneven distribution throughout the state, made community immunity, also known as herd immunity, difficult to achieve, according to the state.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, whose office defended the law, praised the decision in a press release: “This decision is a full and resounding affirmation of the constitutionality and legality of Connecticut’s vaccine requirements.”
Plaintiff We The Patriots USA, through its Vice President and Co-Founder Brian Festa, expressed its disappointment to Legal Insurrection in an email: “We respectfully disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the removal of the religious exemption in Connecticut does not infringe upon the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.”
Appeals Court: No First Amendment Free Exercise Violation
The plaintiffs claimed a medical exemption without a religious exemption violated their First Amendment rights. The appeals court rejected this argument, finding the law neutral with regard to religion and generally applicable.
The plaintiffs did not persuade the appeals court with their argument that a medical exemption without a religious exemption showed the law targeted religion. The appeals court held that a continuing medical exemption furthered the same interest as removing the religious exemption: advancing public health.
The appeals court found the law neutral because the legislative history of the law evinced no hostility toward religion, and the law made concessions to families previously granted religious exemptions by allowing children already exempted to keep that exemption.
The appeals court also rejected the argument that the removal of a religious exemption was itself evidence of hostility toward religion, noting this would convert all religious exemptions into permanent exemptions and possibly discourage legislatures from crafting new religious exemptions.
Because the law is neutral and generally applicable, the appeals court held, the law is constitutional because it is rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in ensuring “the health and safety of Connecticut students and the broader public.”
Appeals Court: Remaining Constitutional Claims Lack Merit
The plaintiffs also argued the vaccine mandate burdened their constitutional rights to privacy and medical freedom, equal protection, and childrearing. The appeals court rejected these constitutional claims.
Citing binding precedent, the appeals court rejected the privacy and medical freedom arguments: “the Constitution embodies no fundamental right that in and of itself would render vaccine requirements imposed in the public interest, in the face of a public health emergency, unconstitutional.”
The appeals court also rejected the plaintiffs’ age-discrimination equal protection claim. The plaintiff’s based this claim on the law’s continuing exemption for already-exempted students, which the plaintiffs argued constituted age-based discrimination against younger students who had not received a religious exemption under the old law.
The appeals rejected this argument, finding the continuing exemptions “balance[d] the expectation interests of parents with currently enrolled students” while allowing Connecticut to further its public health interest.
Addressing the childrearing argument, the appeals court acknowledged parents’ right to “the care, custody, and control of their children” but held the childrearing claim could not exist independent of the First Amendment claim, which the appeals court already rejected.
We The Patriots USA vowed “to file for en banc review at the Second Circuit, giving all 13 judges an opportunity to review this decision.” Festa pledged to “appeal to the United States Supreme Court” if unsuccessful before the Second Circuit again.
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Comments
Any Amish, Mennonites, Quakers in the 2nd Circuit? They about to be told to sign up for selective service among other things based on the logic of this opinion. If a compelling State interest applied in a neutral manner is all it takes to override religious belief/freedom of conscience exemptions there’s a whole lot of new room for the State to require all sorts of things.
There’s never been a constitutional requirement for a religious exemption. That’s established law, at least since Smith. This decision doesn’t change that. The exemption for Selective Service is statutory (both in the Selective Service law itself, and also under RFRA). Congress could certainly abolish the religious exemption if it wanted to, so long as it also abolished all other exemptions. Nobody questions that.
This challenge was on the grounds that since there are other exemptions, there needs to be religious exemptions as well. The court rejected that argument, because the only remaining exemptions are consistent with the law’s purpose, rather than exemptions granted despite the law, and therefore of a different kind than the exemption now being sought. This is a logical argument.
This, too, will be overturned by the Supreme Court.
Unlikely to be overruled by Scotus. I dont recall the early 1900’s case, but unlikely scotus will over turn.
I am personally very much in favor of vaccines – vaccines that work, which excludes any of the covid vaccines, and excludes all the flu vaccines, those vaccines dont come close to working
Polio, mmr, etc though have valid reasons
Yet, holding people down and forcing that needle into their arm is fundamentally unAmerican.
I know many people who refused the vaccine, but I know of absolutely no one who was held down and had a needle forcibly inserted into their arm. Where do you come up with this garbage?
This Ironclaw is a crazy person. Of course no one was held down and forced to take the WuFlu vax. However, there were far too many Americans who had to choose between taking the vax and remaining employed / employable. It’s not physical force, it’s financial, emotional force. And it was horrendous, particularly given how Trump forced the vax through without adequate testing to ensure it was safe (it wasn’t).
Trump screwed the pooch on covid from start to finish, but his worshipers will never admit it. Everything is always someone else’s fault. Not Trump. He was too stupid and guileless to get a thing. He was a complete moron and couldn’t possibly know what we all knew in ’08. He HAD to believe in the swamp . . . because reasons. And the buck never ever stops with Trump. He’s blameless.
Trump is the first Executive in history to not have a clue what is going on under his rule. Trump couldn’t POSSIBLY know how corrupt everyone in DC was. NO ONE KNEW.
Yeah, except all of us knew back in the Bush 43 admin. And the older people who knew before that. And all of us in the Tea Party knew. And just random grannies who knew. But HOW COULD TRUMP KNOW? It was a huge secret that no one knew? Could possibly know? Seriously? We ALL knew, right? Decades ago.
But Trump somehow didn’t get it? That’s the argument? Give me a freaking break. He’s not, he can’t be, that stupid. Right? And if your argument is that he IS THAT stupid, that’s a winning argument how? Trump was and is completely clueless.
That’s the next step when they say you don’t have a right to say no
Why hold a person down when it’s a choice between big stick or a carrot?
Fuzzy is correct
Fuzzy, you say you knew how bad it was since Bush 43, but until you’ve sat on the tarmac wondering if the plane taxiing towards yours is just going to keep on going until it plows through you because either the ATC was incompetent but kept for political reasons, or is being mandated to do the impossible for political reasons, and everyone down to the pilot who is going to die when his plane smacks into yours is too afraid to buck the idiot orders, you really don’t know just how bad it.
Yeah, Trump f’ed up with the covid response, but he was not the one who lead mass violations of civil liberties. That was the Biden administration.
I’m tired of people wanting to excuse that with “but Trump”.
Nobody is forced to take the vaccination, or even to have their children vaccinated. They just can’t send their unvaccinated children to public schools, or to private schools that don’t want them. That’s not unAmerican at all.
Right, just like the anthrax shots were “safe and affective” because I’m 100% disabled from being forced to take them 24 yrs ago.
That’s probably right. The way around various rights losses, e.g. freedom of association, is claiming some other right that hasn’t been eliminated yet, e.g. religion, to trump e.g. the civil rights law. The problem though is the civil rights law, not some magic associated with religious rights. But people are used to the magic.
Government has the right to mandate vaccines under general welfare. That the science is wrong is a problem, that maybe is the reason for free speech without censorship, which doesn’t seem to exist either.
Anyway the problem doesn’t come from religion and isn’t fixed by religion.
“General welfare” clauses don’t give government the right to do anything in the name of the “general welfare.” Where the phrase is used in the Constitution (and in state constitutions), it directs that government exercise its enumerated powers for the benefit of “the general welfare.” If the term provided the authority to do everything and anything necessary for “the general welfare,” no enumerated powers would be necessary. All government acts could be declared to be “in the interests of the general welfare,” no enumerated powers needed. However, the existence of enumerated powers in any constitution demonstrates that any “general welfare” clause does not authorize any and all government acts, but requires that acts made under those enumerated powers be made with the intent of promoting “the general welfare,” and for no other reason.
Mandates for experimental biologics and medical procedures are prohibited by federal law. This is why the federal government went to such great lengths to confuse the public over the status of the vaccines, calling them “authorized for use” (under emergency use authorizations) and suggesting this meant the same as “approved for use.” When Pfizer submitted a reformulation of its gene therapy (Pfizer referred to its “vaccine” as a gene therapy in its SEC filings, but that’s an entire other can of worms), Comirnaty, and it was approved for use, authorities then suggested to the public that the available Pfizer vaccine had been approved, and lied again when they were caught in the “bait and switch,” saying it was “identical” to the approved version. There were even instances in which batches of vaccine were re-labeled to make them appear to be Comirnaty, even though Pfizer admitted that Comirnaty wasn’t in production and would never be available in the US. All of this was done in an attempt to evade federal law that requires mandated biologics be approved for use, and not experimental. A person must volunteer for medical experimentation, government has no authority to mandate such participation.
Unfortunately, these issues aren’t being raised. Arguments about “religious rights” and the “use of fetal tissue” in the development of the vaccines are sideshows and distractions. Governments attempted to force entire populations into medical experimentation (forced medical experimentation is internationally recognized as a crime), and largely succeeded. It was the largest crime ever committed, as hundreds of millions of people were targeted, and many of them were made victims (even discounting adverse effects).
Head’s up, when Comirnaty was approved it was ONLY approved for the trademarked name of “Comirnaty” and the location it could be made, which was I think in the EU somewhere. It contained the same, if not worse formulation with the EUA version and in the announcement paper (package insert I think) it was pulled back under the EUA the same day, so it was always a bait and switch from the beginning. I have the copies of those sheet if you want them.
“If the term provided the authority to do everything and anything necessary for “the general welfare,” no enumerated powers would be necessary.”
“It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. … But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?”
–James Madison, Federalist #41
Indeed. It’s almost universally agreed, except among some uneducated Democrats, that the federal legislature is restricted to its enumerated powers. That’s because the “good and plenty clause”, as John Conyers called it, doesn’t say Congress can make laws for the general welfare. If it said that, Conyers would be right, but it doesn’t. What it says is that Congress can “lay taxes […] to […] provide for […] the general welfare of the united states”. Not make laws, just lay taxes. Any laws it makes still have to come under one of the enumerated powers.
But none of this applies to the states.
As far as the federal constitution (and therefore the federal courts) is concerned, the states are not restricted to enumerated powers. All 50 states have a general police power to do anything they believe to be in the public interest. Now some state constitutions have enumerated powers clauses of their own, and in those cases the legislature is limited to those powers, whatever they are, but the general rule is that state legislatures can do anything they believe is right. If your state has an enumerated powers clause in its constitution, you can challenge laws in your state’s courts, not in federal courts; and the state courts will rule in accord with their own precedents, not the federal precedents.
And I have the right do to my 2nd amendment right that they really don’t want to try to force that needle into me. I’ll happily trade them shot for shot.
But where does it stop?
Ma’am, you need a blood transfusion: “But my religion…” Sorry, it’s the law; now hold still, this won’t hurt a bit.
Sir, you need this transplant: “But my religion…”. Sorry, it’s the law; now hold still, this won’t hurt a bit.
Senior Citizen, we don’t have enough money to cover your elder care, so you will be euthanized. “But my religion….”. Sorry, it’s the law; now hold still, this won’t hurt a bit.
A person adherent to the Jehovah’s Witness creed cannot be forced to take a transfusion, even in a life-threatening situation. Courts have been very consistent on that.
Difference between a transfusion and a vaccine, and one that seems to be lost on many here, is that the latter is a matter of public health. The Founders, and government, since, has recognized the power to intervene when public health matters. That gets messy around the edges, and different states do it differently. But when my illness affects your ability to stay healthy, the public has the right to mandate what I do.
You don’t want a DPT, or measles, or polio vaccine? That’s too bad, because you’re going to get one.
Sorta. Your argument presumes the vaccine you want to mandate is:
1. Effective
2. No longer at the experimental stage
3. Has been subjected to the exact same standards as prior vaccines
4. The disease/virus we are attempting to protect folks from must have widespread severe to deadly consequences if left unvaccinated.
I would point out that none of those were true for the Covid Vax.
Next you made a very broad argument for govt action. ‘When my illness affects your ability to stay healthy the public has a right to mandate what I do’.
Ok lets follow that logic a bit.
You Obese? Sucking up scarce public health dollars, time and attention from limited numbers of medical providers and a limited number of hospital beds? That’s impacting my health.
So now that we’ve established that the 2/3 + of obese Americans are impacting public health you gonna force them to loose weight?
1. Effective (15+ YEARS)
2. No longer at the experimental stage (10+ YEARS)
3. Has been subjected to the exact same standards as prior vaccines (10-20+ YEARS)
4. The disease/virus we are attempting to protect folks from must have widespread severe to deadly consequences if left unvaccinated. (and not run a vaccine program during the epidemic/pandemic, allow the use of alternative drugs ect)
Fixed for ya
Your argument rather melts away when we know that the covid vaccines don’t freaking work
You bring your needle, I’ll bring my .45 and we’ll see who makes a bigger hole
That is a messed up definition of the “general welfare clause” and the founders would not come close to agreeing to that
Rhhardin is not talking about the “good and plenty” clause in the federal constitution, but about the states’ general police power.
I think that the current conservative majority which is very sensitive to claims of free exercise of religion will reverse the findings of the courts in California and NY
It sounds to me as if there is no longer freedom of religion in the United States. We have exactrly as much freedom of religion as the state allows.
It’s as though the Left is power drunk with Biden in office and are now attempting to install absolute rule no matter what the Constitution says. Now Trump’s appointments to the SCOTUS becomes extraordinarily significant for that is the only remaining obstacle for the Left.
Trump’s greatest accomplishment. Mitch deserves a little credit too for keeping that lying psychopath Garland off the court.
I can think of 450 million other remaining obstacles.
If a “compelling interest” is all that it takes for the State to remove Constitutional rights, then most policies endorsed by the neo Marxists become compelling. In fact, they have strong arguments for forcing compliance with ALL their policies.
Climate change? Compelling!
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion? Compelling!
Zero Population growth? Compelling!
Who determines the definition of “compelling”? And where in the Constitution is this exception codified?
It is the sovereign that determines the exceptions.
The text of the constitution would indicate that the state has no interests in these areas which have been expressly excluded from their authority.
Wonder if we’ll ever get an honest reading. (doubt it.)
I hope you mean that the DON’T have strong arguments, because if they did they wouldn’t need to try to force compliance.
I missed the part of the Constitution where it says our rights can be suspended
No right has been suspended. But it’s well established law that neither congress nor the states are required to grant religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. But they can’t treat religion worse than other considerations, so if they grant other exemptions, then they have to give religion equal consideration. In this case the court ruled that CT has done that.
We shouldn’t need to object “on religious grounds”. A simple “I don’t wanna!” should be sufficient.
The integrity of one’s body is a fundamental right, and no other reason for refusing an invasive injection should be required.
Sending your child to a public school is not a fundamental right.
We don’t have a constitution anymore
It really is just a piece of paper
The Constitution has always been a piece of paper, and it has always required virtue on the part of the politicians AND the citizens.
We complain about politicians who ignore it, but we should also complain about the citizens who vote for the politicians who enable the government to work outside of its mandated role.
Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams: Letter to Officers of the Mass. Militia, 1798
The Communists have proven that part about the moral and religious people without any room left for doubt. They are not moral, they are not religious and they are not suitable for the Constitution
Will the person who downvoted ChrisPeters’ comment please identify yourself.
They will compel it in the public interest to remove all private gun ownership at some point
Not sure why you got down-voted for that; you’re not wrong.
Using the language of this decision, if all it takes to nullify the Bill of Rights is a compelling public emergency, then a compelling public emergency will be found … or created.
Don’t think the soft-on-crime Leftist prosecutors care one bit about the violent criminals they release with no-cash bail. They KNOW those people will re-offend, and probably escalate. They KNOW innocent people will get hurt. They’re counting on it.
Escalating crime creates a compelling public emergency, which paves the way to increase government power and restrict individual rights “in the name of public safety”. Add to that, the Left has been trying for decades to reclassify “gun violence” as an “epidemic” or “public health crisis”. Why? Because health codes and health-related emergencies give them much more leeway to unilaterally enact broad restrictions than criminal codes and crime-related emergencies; criminal codes apply only to criminals, but health codes apply to everybody.
That’s why the best 2nd Amendment advocates have their ears to the ground on ALL Constitutionally-protected rights: Any argument used to successfully abridge one Bill of Rights Amendment will eventually be turned against the 2nd.
The real reason why they want to take away firearms is it makes the USA a non-superpower. Then the Commies can call in the UN or any other hired army to steamroll the country for a pocket full of money and a full belly.
So their argument was “We can’t allow exemptions because people are actually using exemptions.” Thus admitting it was all theater and they are not actually respecting the free exercise of religion. That alone should have handed the case to the other side and sent the State packing.
Here’s another example where we should not accept the language of the left. call it what it is: flock immunity. Baaaaaaaaa.
So they’re using “herd immunity” – which our government “experts” claimed did not exist for covid – to justify vaccine mandates. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked. But I am.
They also cried to claim that there was no natural immunity through own immune system, but then their precious vaccine wouldn’t work either
The words “in the face of a public health emergency” in the opinion is more than enough for SCOTUS to strike down the ruling. The state of CT should have stopped at requiring the basic childhood vaxes for school, just as it has been for decades.
Right. If a Constitutionally-protected right can be nullified because of some compelling public emergency, then compelling public emergencies WILL be found (or created) to continually nullify rights.
We’re already three-and-a-half years into the COVID pandemic. If they can keep the series of “emergencies” for another 10-15 years, none of the youth coming into voting age will remember ever having religious freedom to refuse medical treatments. They’ll have no concept of what that means, why it’s important, or why it must be defended. And 18-20 years isn’t that much; several U.S. Senators have held their seats for longer than that.
Personally, I’m all for the notion that any defense of one Constitutionally-protected right works equally well for all of them. Thus, using the reasoning in the Bruen decision, the State of CT should have been pressed for some “text, history, or tradition” and analogous law — dating back to the time of the Founding — abridging religious freedoms “in the face of a public health emergency”.
Oh, they can’t cite one? Tough beans, they can’t create one now. Period. Full stop.
Preparing us for “The Abolition of Man”. C.S. Lewis
in the face of a public health emergency
i.e. At the whim of some deranged morons temporarily occupying government positions.
I think we all saw more than enough of “public health emergency” BS during the wuhan virus hysteria/tyranny. I’m still waiting for some of the worst criminals in American history to get their just punishments.
So “public health” trumps religious and/or individual conscience, Constitution be damned. Got it.
With that exception big enough to drive a Sherman tank through, they can do ANYTHING in the name of “public health.” Eat ze bugs, cos “public health” and “meat is bad for you and the planet.” Exercise 50 times a day because “public health” and we can’t have fat people in our society.
The list is endless.
Ban ze gunz, cos “gun violence” is an “epidemic” and a “public health crisis”.
Ban ze tobaccos, cos smoking is a “public health emergency” and bad for you.
Ban ze alcohols, cos drinking is a “public health emergency” and bad for you. (Zat one, we’s done before and can do’s it again.)
Haz your mandated abortionz, cos there’s too many peoplez, and overpopulation is a “public health emergency”.
…
The list is indeed endless.
didn’t the supreme court already make a decision on forced immunizations. I know it wasn’t specific to this subject but it pretty much defined the direction of the jurisprudence
If they did, it wasn’t specific to this subject so the States and Courts feel they can ignore it, as if precedent ceases to apply if the circumstances aren’t identical.
FDA Drops Ivermectin Bombshell
“FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID,” Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, said during oral arguments on Aug. 8 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
That would be news to all the doctors who had their licenses threatened because they dared to prescribe ivermectin for this unauthorized, off-label use.
Off label prescribing has always been encouraged by FDA.
Until this recent covid event.
“Unauthorized” isn’t a term that’s used — doctors prescribe off label every day all day long.
If ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and fluvoxamine and Vitamin D hadn’t have been interfered with, lots of lives would have been saved, lots of jabs would have been avoided.
USA roughly 4% of world population
USA roughly 15% of COVID deaths
Think.
Since the covid vaccine that isn’t a vaccine doesn’t confer immunity- at all, and the more shots you get the more likely you are to get covid, then the argument that refusing the vaccine makes it impossible to get herd immunity because people aren’t getting vaccinated is false.