Which religions oppose vaccination, and on what grounds? There has obviously been much discussion about (covid) vaccine mandates in the US. From my limited reading on the matter, it sounds like the federal government has empowered employers to require employees to be vaccinated. What is unclear to me is how religious exemptions would be handled. I'd guess that there must be state laws (Vermont, New Hampshire are the jurisdictions in question) that govern how exemptions are applied for, but I don't know where to look to learn the rules. In specific, which religions oppose vaccination, and on what grounds? I'm curious to learn in detail which biblical passages might be construed as opposing shots for certain Christian denominations, for example, but the answers need not be limited to Christianity.
Both Title VII of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as amended), and the Americans with Disabilities Act(ADA) as amended, provide that employer mandates are subject to &quot;reasonable accommodations&quot; for &quot;sincere religious beliefs&quot;. If any mandate was based on or subject to either of those laws, requests for accommodation would need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. The belief does not have to be a tenant of any church or organized religious group, but may be purely individual. State laws granting religious exemptions might also apply. However, in Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944) the US Supreme court wrote: Thus, he [a parent] cannot claim freedom from compulsory vaccination for the child more than for himself on religious grounds. The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death. People v. Pierson, 176 N.Y. 201, 68 N.E. 243. Prince was a case of a child labor law (selling religious pamphlets in the streets) not an actual vaccination case, so the above statement was not strictly binding precedent. Whether it would now be considered good law I cannot say unless it coems up oin a current case. To the best of my knowledge, no major religion or denomination objects to vaccines as such, although some do object to vaccines developed using fetal stem cells. I believe that at one time the Jehovah's Witnesses did so object (one of them was the appellant in Prince) but they no longer hold that view. At least some individuals have expressed such objections, but most expressed objections to vaccines or vaccine mandates have not been on religious grounds.
Any legal question that begins with the word &quot;suppose&quot; becomes an academic exercise. Acceptance of religious principle can be incorporated in law, but it can also be reversed by later legislatures. In the case of witchcraft, I would recommend reading the results of a search on &quot;Matthew Hopkins&quot;, &quot;Pendle&quot; and &quot;Salem&quot;. In the US, Russia and Israel at time of writing, witchcraft is not considered to have a direct effect on criminal outcomes, though there may be aspects of the performance of religious activities and ceremonies that could be covered by incitement or conspiracy laws. Taking the position that &quot;application to God is application to a higher court&quot; is unlikely to lead to acquittal unless considered indicative of insanity, but may mitigate sentencing as part of a diminished responsibility defence.
It depends on whether Alice is a &quot;minister.&quot; This case plays on the tension between employment-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, and the First Amendment, “which protects a religious group's right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.” Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church &amp; Sch. v. Equal Emp't Opportunity Comm'n, 565 U.S. 171, 188 (2012). We resolve the question by asking whether Alice is a &quot;minister,&quot; i.e., whether the religion has entrusted her “with the responsibility of educating and forming students in the faith” Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049, 2069 (2020). If so, she falls within the First Amendment's &quot;ministerial exception&quot; to employment-discrimination laws. But the precise definition of that term remains rather squishy, so we don't really have a test that can give us a reliable answer. In Hosanna-Tabor, for instance, a teacher at a religious school brought an ADA claim after the school fired her after she missed a semester on disability leave. The court rejected her claims based on the religious character of her work, and the Supreme Court affirmed, concluding that she was a minister based on the job title she received (Minister of Religion, Commissioned), her own use of the minister title, the religious character of many of her job responsibilities, her religious training, and other factors. Although she was a minister who was replaced by another minister, the Court suggested that the outcome might be the same if she were not a minister. Noting that the school in that case – just like in your hypothetical – hired lay teachers only when ministers were not available, it rejected the argument that an employee falls outside the ministerial exception simply because there are non-ministers with the same job functions: Though relevant, it cannot be dispositive that others not formally recognized as ministers by the church perform the same functions—particularly when, as here, they did so only because commissioned ministers were unavailable.” Hosanna-Tabor at 193. And a few years later, the Court indicated that perhaps none of those factors from Hosanna-Tabor are actually required. Instead, it directed courts to ask whether the school “entrusts a teacher with the responsibility of educating and forming students in the faith.” Our Lady of Guadalupe School at 2069. So in your hypothetical, the courts would probably look to see whether BYU treats its professorships as ministerial positions. Although the answer could vary from one religious school to the next, it seems quite likely that the courts would treat BYU professors as ministers, given their Personnel Conduct Policy: It is a condition of employment that all personnel (including student employees) act in accordance with university policies and the Church Educational System Honor Code, including the Dress and Grooming Standards, and refrain from behavior or expression that seriously and adversely affects the university mission or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Examples include behavior or expression that Contradicts or opposes, rather than analyzes or discusses, fundamental Church doctrine or policy; Deliberately attacks or derides the Church or its general leaders; or Violates the Church Educational System Honor Code. All personnel are expected to be role models of a life that combines the quest for intellectual rigor with spiritual values and personal integrity, and to conduct their work in a professional manner consistent with the values espoused by the university and the Church. Members of the Church in nonstudent positions also accept as a condition of employment the standards of conduct consistent with qualifying for temple privileges. The university regularly contacts ecclesiastical leaders concerning the temple eligibility of all nonstudent personnel who are members of the Church. I couldn't find any cases applying the ministerial exception to Brigham Young, but given its expectation that employees act as &quot;role models&quot; for the church's &quot;spiritual values&quot; and conduct their work in a manner consistent with &quot;values espoused by ... the church,&quot; I would be surprised to see a court get in the middle of the school's decisions to fire Alice and replace her with a member of the church, even if she had not run afoul of those policies herself. The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so too is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith, and carry out their mission. When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way. Hosanna-Tabor at 196. Still, Alice could have other bases for suing the school. Based on your tags, I'm assuming you're most interested in employment-discrimination claims. While those might be barred by the First Amendment, Hosanna-Tabor explicitly held open the possibility that a contract claim might still be viable. Hosanna-Tabor at 196 (“We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct by their religious employers.”). So if the school signed a contract agreeing to employ Alice for three years, she would have a strong argument that it had waived its right to discriminate on the basis of religion for that period.
There's nothing that makes it illegal to ask others to give you money to donate to a third party. But if you want to say you're fundraising on behalf of another organization, obviously you need its permission. And if you want contributions to be considered charitable for tax purposes, and you want to make sure you don't wind up paying taxes on contributions "sent to" you but then passed on, then you may need to start worrying about a separate entity. It would be more straightforward to offer to create, host and administer the website for the church, with it receiving the contributions directly.
What most of your quotes are based on is this general consensus reached by the federal and state governments on how to proceed. The actually legal implementation happens on the state level in form of decrees. Therefore, the quoted texts are not to be taken as legal text, but human-readable¹. In particular they are not to be taken painstakingly literal, but context and common sense may be applied². The actual decrees are much more specific and clear. For example, let’s take the decree for Northrhine-Westphalia (translation mine): § 11 Veranstaltungen, Versammlungen, Gottesdienste, Beerdigungen (1) Veranstaltungen und Versammlungen sind untersagt. Ausgenommen sind […] § 12 Ansammlungen, Aufenthalt im öffentlichen Raum (1) Zusammenkünfte und Ansammlungen in der Öffentlichkeit von mehr als 2 Personen sind untersagt. Ausgenommen sind […] § 11 Events, gatherings, religious services, funerals (1) Events and gatherings are forbidden. Exempt are […] § 12 Gatherings and presence in public space (1) Congregations and gatherings of more than two persons in public are forbidden. Exempt from this are […] Most of this is clearly about in-person meetings. The only exception is the term “Veranstaltung” (event), which could be construed to cover online events. However, in other laws using this term, it clearly refers to in-person events. For example parts of this law governing the number of toilets available at an event do not make any sense for online events. I see nothing in the decree that would forbid online celebrations. In fact celebrations are not mentioned at all (and are covered by more general terms in the degree, as far as they are in-person). ¹ To be fair, the actual legal texts are not that bad in terms in human readability either. ² Mind that I do not wish to accuse you of lacking common sense here. After all the consensus dissonating with your common sense made you ask this question.
Reynolds v. United States 98 U.S. 145 held that "A party's religious belief cannot be accepted as a justification for his committing an overt act, made criminal by the law of the land". Employment v. Smith 494 US 872 applies this to criminal acts, holding that "The Free Exercise Clause permits the State to prohibit sacramental peyote use" and "the [Free Exercise] Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a law that incidentally forbids (or requires) the performance of an act that his religious belief requires (or forbids) if the law is not specifically directed to religious practice and is otherwise constitutional as applied to those who engage in the specified act for nonreligious reasons". Likewise Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah 508 US 520 "a law that burdens religious practice need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest if it is neutral and of general applicability" (the ordinances were not narrowly taylored, unlike murder statutes). Thus laws against murder do not become unconstitutional when one proclaims a religious basis for violating the law, since they are religiously neutral and are there for good reason.
There's nothing to cancel. Your employer has made an exception for you, because of the ADA: you are not required to be vaccinated. That doesn't mean you can't be vaccinated. Once your doctor advises you that it's safe to be vaccinated, and once you are vaccinated, you no longer need the exception, but there's no need to cancel it. As far as the weekly tests, they are required as an alternative measure because you aren't vaccinated. Once you are vaccinated, there should be no more need for weekly testing. You may of course inform your employer that your doctor's advice changed that you were vaccinated, and that you therefore no longer require the accommodation that they offered. That should allow you to stop the weekly testing regime, but otherwise it should be the end of it, since at that point everyone should be satisfied.
Although an academy is state-funded, it is not the government, so limitations on what a government is allowed to do are not applicable, and anyway there is no First Amendment separation of church and state in the UK. I presume your school has a formal faith designation, which means that it is not subject to Section 85 of the Equality Act 2010, which might maybe be a path for escaping the requirement. The "collective worship" requirement is mandated by the government under Section 70 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which is extended to academy schools by the funding agreements. The requirement is that "each pupil in attendance at a community, foundation or voluntary school shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship". Section 71 provides an exception: If the parent of a pupil at a community, foundation or voluntary school requests that he may be wholly or partly excused from receiving religious education given in the school in accordance with the school’s basic curriculum, from attendance at religious worship in the school, or both from receiving such education and from such attendance, the pupil shall be so excused until the request is withdrawn. Since a religious academy is not subject to the national curriculum, deviation from whatever the religious requirements are stated in that curriculum is allowed.