If I were asked to sign a list that started this way, I’d immediately think it was bullshit. Acetaminophen, Bismuth, and ASA have all been used for their primary medicinal purposes long long before we had any idea what a fetal stem cell was.
Good data from Amish country is hard to come by.
It does appear that 1) the Covid-19 vaccination rate in at least some Amish communities is low compared to the general population*, and 2) reasons given by some Amish to avoid Covid-19 vaccines are not religion-based, but mirror reasons for hesitancy among non-Amish.
The article notes that Covid-19 hospitalization and death rates are higher in Holmes County (with a large Amish population) compared to the rest of Ohio.
But damn, now we have to swear off those immoral drugs.
*plenty of Amish have their kids vaccinated against childhood diseases.
New and improved! Tested on dead babies.
I mean, I’m sure that various drug companies are using cutting edge research or whatever, but I’m also sure that, even if I had a morally principled stance against using fetal stem cells (I don’t), that moral stance would not require me to stop using medicines that have been used to treat human ailments since before my great great grandparents were born.
Like, I’m actually very strongly morally opposed to slavery, and I’m sure somewhere someone is using slaves to harvest timber, but that doesn’t mean that I have to refuse to live in a house to remain morally consistent.
Suggesting that it does would mean that anyone with moral qualms that are not accepted by mainstream big business would have to cede all ability to live a normal life, even to the standards of modernity that existed prior the the morally questionable act being conceived of. That’s an absurd standard.
I posted this link in the Great Debates mandate thread as well, but it’s worthy of posting here as well:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/29/politics/maine-vaccine-mandate-supreme-court/index.html
Over the last few months, the justices had declined invitations to strike down vaccine mandates at Indiana University and New York City schools, but the Maine dispute targeted religious liberty concerns.
The Maine vaccine mandate – that requires designated health care facilities, dental health providers and emergency services organizations to require that their employees to get the vaccine – went into force on Friday. The workers bringing the suit argued that it violates the Constitution and Title VII, federal civil rights law that bars employment discrimination based on religion. While Maine offers a limited exemption for some medical situations, it does not consider requests for religious objections.
Sigh Yes, and it even says 44 in the intro…I’m going to stop trying to count.
Actually yes. I read an explanation and some of these it’s only certain types like Tylenol Cold & Flu, not Tylenol OG.
The important point here is that even the most sincere religious belief exemption doesn’t override the valid requirements of the job or other situation. If you’re an office worker, your employer may be able to have you work from home as a reasonable accommodation to deal with your religious beliefs. If you’re an operating room nurse, that’s not going to be possible. Some of the objectors seem to believe that all they have to do is say “religious belief” and they can continue to behave in every way as if COVID doesn’t exist.
Weirdly, you can’t be a real Catholic if you support abortion rights - but an antivaccine Catholic can defy the Pope when he says it’s OK to use vaccines developed using fetal cells, and demand a religious exemption.
My lack of understanding here is probably due to my not being Catholic. 
You start with a form. I’ve been dealing with medical and religious accommodation requests from employees at work for exemptions from our vaccine policy. Best practice is to assume the request for a religious accommodation stems from a sincerely held religious belief on the part of the employee. I’m having a hard time looking at these accommodation requests and thinking they represent a good faith effort to adhere to their sincerely held religious beliefs though. But it’s hard to talk about these things in general because you always deal with these on a case-by-case basis. Best practice is as follows:
- The first thing you do is check and make sure this accommodation request isn’t actually an ADA issue.
- Check the wording used by the employee in requesting the accommodation. If it’s just a personal preference, such as not feeling as though the vaccine is safe, then you don’t have to accommodate that belief.
- Ask the employee to explain their sincerely held belief. They can feel free to provide documentation from their clergy if they so desire but a lack of such documentation isn’t sufficient reason to deny the accommodation.
- Determine whether or not the employee does in fact have a sincerely held religious belief. And, yeah, this is tricky.
- Figure out if the accommodation can be made. For religious accommodations, anything that imposes more than de minimis cost or burden can be rejected.
One of the problems we have in regards to reasonable accommodations and de minimis cost is that it really doesn’t cost us anything for most employees to work from home. About 90% of our workforce has been working remotely for the last 18 months and we’ve all got the equipment to do so. For some positions it may not be possible for them to work remotely. I’m thinking of customer facing positions or IT when they’re running around the office replacing printers, monitors, and other equipment. So what other accommodations might we offer? There’s always masking and testing at the employee’s expense.
Thx for the real world explanation.
So what percentage do you grant?
Step 2 sorta strikes me as problematic as a threshold, as the sophistication of the wording does not seem too closely related to the sincerity of the belief. I would imagine that, given the “best practices” and minimal implications you describe, the safest/easiest thing would be just to grant them all. I appreciate that from a utilitarian perspective, but it still rubs me the wrong way. But my personal preference would be to do away w/ many religious accommodations.
Although many of my conservative redneck relatives voice distrust of masking or vaccination requirements, I am rather surprised and pleased that my Jehovah’s Witness relatives have expressed positive comments and reactions on Facebook regarding COVID vaccinations. I just read an article regarding JW’s in New York, who had been maligned as antivaxxers. They responded that 99% of the people working in their office were vaccinated. (The JW world headquarters is in New York state.) Cool!
The stances of different churches about Covid-19 vaccination:
Where do major US religions stand on the COVID-19 vaccination? - East Idaho News
You have it reversed. Demanding that a religious exemption be based in a sincere religious belief is not an assault on religion, it validates the unique place religion holds in our society.
If a religious exemption didn’t have to be based in actual religious beliefs, then anyone can use them whether they are religious or not. Yes, it is easier for the religious if the guy with a colander on his head can get the same level of accommodation, but it makes a mockery of the entire concept of religious exemption.
We’re still working through it, but I think 80% of them will end up being granted. We’ve had a fair number of employees who halted the process and went ahead and got their vaccines despite their “sincerely” held religious beliefs.
Almost any accommodation request is problematic in that there are no blanket answers (though there are plenty no-brainers). You have to handle each request on a case-by-case basis. Thankfully most employees don’t actually abuse the system to their advantage though there are always a few.
Doesn’t address vax issue directly but perhaps some insight on the legality religious freedoms.
In NY, after Gov’t Cuomo imposed restrictions on gatherings, which included restricting religious gatherings, the courts determined that whatever the ‘weakest’ least restrictive restriction was must also be applied to religious gatherings due to constitutional protections. So while not a magic bubble, it would place them in the least restrictive category automatically. Religious gatherings still could be restricted, but not categorized.
As this applies to vax status, It’s hard for me to make the case that medically qualified exemption has the same gravitas as a gathering.
I made an accommodation request, once. My company had been getting new chairs over a period of years. I had two in my office (ah, for the days when I had an office) and I got one new one, and quickly realized that my foot tended to go numb when I used that chair, so I continued using the old one. We all moved to cubicles, and I only had one chair, so I kept the old one. At some point, they decided to finish “upgrading” to the new one, and told me I would have to give up my old chair and use a new one.
I asked to keep the old one, saying the new one made my foot go numb. The administrator in charge lectured me on how she was trained in ergonomics, and I needed to use the new chair, and sit differently. I complained to my manager, and said I would ask my doctor for a letter about it. A week later, with no explanation, (and without a note from my doctor) I was told I could keep the old chair. And once it was officially designated as my “ADA compliant chair”, I had no trouble keeping it as my department moved from place to place, it just got moved with the rest of my stuff. I think it’s still in the office, with a piece of paper taped to it saying that it’s my chair. (We haven’t been in the office since April 2020.)
Accommodations are weird.