Good observations, John. You remind me of the dilemma draft boards would face (back in the day) if/when a member of a mainline denomination would claim Conscientious Objector status. As I recall, the draft boards had the right to question such individuals to assess genuineness of their objection to taking up arms in military service to the country. These contemporary flash points raise similar issues, and the current political climate tends to amplify the intensity of feelings on each "side," to increase one's skepticism toward the claims of those with whom we disagree. "You can't possibly be serious!" Tricky stuff.
Good comments, John. I remember those days! Objectively measuring and evaluating sincerity is almost impossible to do which indicates to me that unless everyone is allowed to claim religious exemptions from laws solely based on their sincerity, that there needs to be some other factors to be considered. For instance people have sincerely believed in our history that they should own slaves or have multiple wives or not pay taxes according to their religious convictions. But we developed laws that superseded those sincere convictions for the sake of the individuals harmed by such beliefs and for the sake of the common good. Personally, I would put vaccine mandates in that category to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people while pro-life issues truly do have centuries of religious convictions behind them.
Based on this, is there a anything to define what is a “religious claim” or even a “religion”? It seems to define these terms so broadly they have no meaning.
I appreciate the legal principle you have stated, but I know of too many Christians who sincerely believed that being vaccinated was wrong for Christian reasons but could not articulate what those reasons were! They usually came down to not wanting government to control their bodies (their opposite reasoning for being anti-abortion) which was a political reason and not a religious one. So should there not be some necessary criteria of official religious beliefs that people sincerely believe rather than allowing anyone to sincerely claim religious convictions as a cover for political ones?
Thanks, Bob. I share your sense that many vaccine objectors are conflating politics with religion (and this in turn will hurt the credibility of religious freedom claims more broadly). But as a constitutional matter, I think the better resolution of these claims is on compelling interest grounds for some (though not all) of these claims, depending on overall vaccination rates and virus transmissibility (and/or hospitalization rates) in a given region.
Good observations, John. You remind me of the dilemma draft boards would face (back in the day) if/when a member of a mainline denomination would claim Conscientious Objector status. As I recall, the draft boards had the right to question such individuals to assess genuineness of their objection to taking up arms in military service to the country. These contemporary flash points raise similar issues, and the current political climate tends to amplify the intensity of feelings on each "side," to increase one's skepticism toward the claims of those with whom we disagree. "You can't possibly be serious!" Tricky stuff.
Good comments, John. I remember those days! Objectively measuring and evaluating sincerity is almost impossible to do which indicates to me that unless everyone is allowed to claim religious exemptions from laws solely based on their sincerity, that there needs to be some other factors to be considered. For instance people have sincerely believed in our history that they should own slaves or have multiple wives or not pay taxes according to their religious convictions. But we developed laws that superseded those sincere convictions for the sake of the individuals harmed by such beliefs and for the sake of the common good. Personally, I would put vaccine mandates in that category to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people while pro-life issues truly do have centuries of religious convictions behind them.
Based on this, is there a anything to define what is a “religious claim” or even a “religion”? It seems to define these terms so broadly they have no meaning.
This is a perpetual challenge of free exercise cases, see, e.g., https://www.jinazu.com/rcl-defining-religion
I appreciate the legal principle you have stated, but I know of too many Christians who sincerely believed that being vaccinated was wrong for Christian reasons but could not articulate what those reasons were! They usually came down to not wanting government to control their bodies (their opposite reasoning for being anti-abortion) which was a political reason and not a religious one. So should there not be some necessary criteria of official religious beliefs that people sincerely believe rather than allowing anyone to sincerely claim religious convictions as a cover for political ones?
Thanks, Bob. I share your sense that many vaccine objectors are conflating politics with religion (and this in turn will hurt the credibility of religious freedom claims more broadly). But as a constitutional matter, I think the better resolution of these claims is on compelling interest grounds for some (though not all) of these claims, depending on overall vaccination rates and virus transmissibility (and/or hospitalization rates) in a given region.