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Society & Culture
Anti-Vaccination
Religious Liberty
Public Education

“Backed by attorneys with Advocates for Faith & Freedom…. The plaintiffs contend that SB 277 unfairly targets their religious beliefs while permitting numerous secular exemptions, forcing them to choose between their faith and their children’s access to education.” - CPost

Discussion

Fri, 08/15/25

I didn’t see in the article what religion it is that allegedly teaches that you can’t vaccinate. Jehovah’s Witnesses? Maybe some flavors of Adventism? There are a few probably.

Or it’s a “this is my personal religion” situation, which gets into all sorts of thorny legal territory.

I hope they are not trying to argue that Christianity forbids vaccination or teaches disregard for how our choices impact the health of those around us.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Fri, 08/15/25

Aaron, a lot of religious people object to certain vaccinations because they're made with a stem cell line from (allegedly) an aborted fetus. The use of that line is fairly ubiquitous, though, so it's hard to be consistent with that.

So it's not really church leaders of consequence leading this, but rather more small splinter movements.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Sat, 08/16/25

While I don't agree with the line of reasoning, it's not irrational, and I can sympathize.

Sat, 08/16/25

Aaron, a lot of religious people object to certain vaccinations because they’re made with a stem cell line from (allegedly) an aborted fetus. The use of that line is fairly ubiquitous, though, so it’s hard to be consistent with that.

I see the logic of that, but it remains fraught. At what point does an ethical concern become a religious liberty concern? And the more people push that boundary, the messier—perhaps the weaker—those protections on religious liberty become.

I’m of the “choose your battles” school of thought on that one I guess.

To the degree the case is about Christian faith at all, it illustrates the need to equip believers to work through Christian ethics. At what point does something wrong someone else did become a problem for what you and I do, especially when there are non-neutral consequences, like public health—the life and death of children?

Is it right to fight this kind of question as a church vs. state religious liberty issue? Maybe. I’m not going to claim to be fully informed. Perhaps the law is just plain badly written and deserves to be shot down in court and redrafted in some better form by a legislature.

It just often looks like we are not choosing our battles very well in the defense of religious liberty (and/or not looking at all the ethics involved… cherry picking abortion and ignoring the outcomes for the now living).

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Sat, 08/16/25

I had one of the moms in my church post a notice on her facebook account that anyone who allows their children to be vaccinated cannot be a Christian because many vaccinations were developed using cell lines from aborted babies.

Sorry. This dog won't hunt. The fact that cell lines millions of generations removed from the original baby (miscarried or aborted in the 70s) are used in some vaccine development doesn't make the new vaccine ethically or morally compromised.

See this article from TGC: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-faqs-fetal-cells-covid-19-vaccines-treatments/

Claiming a religious exemption because of this is just foolish.

Sun, 08/17/25

Does a sincerely held religious belief have to be accurate in other to be protected by the 1st Amendment? Who gets to decide whether a particular religious view is accurate or sincere enough to count?

There is a reason the courts have given wide latitude on many of these kinds of questions. Allowing these exemptions to stand forces the courts to enter into what may or may not qualify as a sincerely held religious view. I think this is highly problematic, yet unsurprising, coming from the California legislature.

Sun, 08/17/25

Does a sincerely held religious belief have to be accurate in other to be protected by the 1st Amendment?

No, and that’s the problem. Individuals and groups have discovered they can call just about anything a sincerely held religious belief, which just erodes the intent of the first amendment. It can’t possibly stand in a world where everybody claims everything is a sincerely held religious belief. So, once again, as in so many other things, it turns out that truth matters.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Sun, 08/17/25

Individuals and groups have discovered they can call just about anything a sincerely held religious belief, which just erodes the intent of the first amendment.

I hear there are even people who believe that a man rose from the dead!

Mon, 08/18/25

Does a sincerely held religious belief have to be accurate in other to be protected by the 1st Amendment? Who gets to decide whether a particular religious view is accurate or sincere enough to count?

I find it interesting that those who argue the loudest for separation of church and state and define it as the state not being influenced by religion are often those who want to have the state tell us what acceptable religion is. They have it backwards.