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Religious Exemptions.

Posted on 19th September 2021

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This story on NewsOne is sadly not so unusual.

NewsOne says, in their piece, that there " a growing trend of people who oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates exercising their religious exemptions as a way to skirt the rules."

I can't work out who is more ignorant in this case: NewsOne, the restaurant or the family trying to skirt the rules.

A man took his family to a restaurant in New York. The waiter tells the family that he can not serve them unless they show proof of vaccination.

The key statement is by the would be customer: "... we just told you that we are religiously exempt". No proof of this claimed religious exemption was proffered.

There are only two kinds of requirement to be vaccinated: those imposed by law, whether federal law, state law or local law; and those imposed by the venue (in this case, the restaurant). There is only one party that can grant an exemption to a rule: the party who created that rule.

In Germany, the requirement to have been vaccinated, and to show proof of that vaccination is imposed by law (usually by the city of state government, not the federal government, depending on the current number of infections), but in the US these rules are usually imposed by the venue/business. In such cases, claiming that his family "are ... exempt" could only be true if the restaurant had granted an exemption.

For countries like the USA, Germany, Britain, etc. which have a separation of church and state, and where religions have no special status under the law (except, in many cases, being tax exempt as a charity) there is no way that one's church can grant an exemption to either a law or a venue's rules. Even in countries which do not have this separation, such as Iran, documentary proof of this exemption is required.

The restaurant really should have pushed back much harder.

The problem in the US seems to be that people believe that their various religions have some special legal status that they do not actually have. This has led to numerous highly publicised cases of people flouting laws against discrimination on the grounds of their religious convictions.

I do not have a requirement that people who visit my home are vaccinated against Covid-19 (nor any other disease), but I have a general expectation that they are. If a visitor tried to claim that they were exempt on the grounds of their religion, they would not get in (or if they were already in my home, they would be leaving immediately), simply because I don't tolerate being bullshitted, and will not tolerate being told that my choices are governed by someone else's religion.