Tag: mandatory vaccination

How to Mount a Religious Liberty Challenge to a Childhood Vaccine Mandate

In 2024, IT specialist Lisa Domski was awarded $12.7 million in a religious discrimination lawsuit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. The health company had fired her for refusing a Covid-19 vaccine that was developed using aborted fetal cell lines—to which she objected as a Catholic. 

Domski’s case isn’t unique. Hers is one of at least five major lawsuits pitting vaccine mandates against religious liberty in recent years.

Most Americans might assume that the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment would extend to vaccines given to both adults and children. Most states do recognize such a right, but California, Connecticut, Maine, New York, and West Virginia do not.

Should they? With ever-growing public concern about vaccine mandates, it’s only a matter of time before this question reaches the Supreme Court. 

The Court has never ruled directly on the question of religious liberty and vaccine mandates, but it has dealt with mandates. Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) involved an adult man, Henning Jacobson of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The city, following a state statute, had mandated the smallpox vaccine during an epidemic and had fined Jacobson five dollars for failing to comply. He argued that his state’s mandate violated his right to individual liberty under the 14th Amendment.

The Supreme Court disagreed with Mr. Jacobson. It ruled 7-2 that states have broad authority under their police powers to enact public health measures, including compulsory vaccinations, when necessary to protect the community. 

In Zucht v. King (1922), the Supreme Court ruled that schools could mandate vaccines. In Cantwell (1940), however, the Court found that states needed to have a compelling state interest to restrict religious freedom. Half a century later, Smith (1990) lowered the bar for states to overrule religious liberty claims. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993) partially rebalanced the scales. And recent Court decisions suggest that the Court may soon send Smith to the recycle bin.

None of these cases, however, involved a potential conflict between religious liberty and a vaccine mandate. So, these questions remain: If presented with the issue, should the Supreme Court require that state laws recognize religious liberty objections to vaccine mandates? And if so, under what conditions?

I’m neither a legal scholar nor a prophet, so I won’t venture a prediction about how the Court would rule. Still, the Court should recognize the legitimacy of at least some religious liberty objections to vaccine mandates. This is true even if one believes the seven-vote majority decided correctly in 1905 that states could mandate the smallpox vaccine.

Such mandates always involve crucial questions of fact. In Jacobson, the Court took for granted several of what it viewed as facts: (1) Smallpox vaccines, they assumed, had a long history of immunizing recipients against a highly infectious and deadly disease. (2) There were few alternative treatments for the infected. (3) The cost of refusing the Massachusetts mandate—a small fine—was not all that burdensome. (4) The risk of the vaccine itself was quite low. (5) Finally, they assumed, such a mandate was needed for public safety. 

Given all this, they rejected his appeal to personal liberty.

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Doctor Speaks Out After DOJ Drops Charges for Helping Patients Avoid COVID Mandates

Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, a Utah plastic surgeon who was indicted in 2023 for allegedly destroying government-provided COVID vaccines, issuing fake vaccination cards, and administering saline shots to patients who wished to get around mandates, spoke out in front of the Supreme Court after his charges were dropped.

Joining other speakers Sunday on the fifth anniversary of the 2020 “White Coat Summit,” where experts Dr. Simone Gold and Dr. Stella Immanuel led America’s Frontline Doctors in a public outcry against COVID-related tyranny, Moore thanked those who supported him and slammed Big Pharma. 

“I stand here before you, not because I was seeking attention, but because I refused to abandon my oath,” the Utah doctor told the crowd. “My story just isn’t my own. It’s a warning shot, a rally cry, and a living testament to what happens when medicine and morality collide with government overreach.”

Moore went on to thank U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) for standing up for him “when it mattered the most.”

Bondi announced that her Justice Department dismissed the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to dispose of government property, in a July 12 social media post.

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Judge rules against Seattle employees fired for religious refusal of COVID vax

King County Superior Court Judge Tanya L. Thorp has ruled in favor of the City of Seattle in a high-profile lawsuit brought by dozens of former city employees who were terminated after refusing to comply with the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Thorp ruled that none of them had sincerely held religious beliefs when they objected to the vaccine mandate. She said their beliefs are “secular cloaked in religious vernacular,” and that prayer is not a reasonable manner for decision making.

In her ruling, Thorp agreed with arguments presented by the city’s outside counsel, Seyfarth Shaw LLP, granting a motion for summary judgment on most of the plaintiffs’ claims. The employees from City Light (SCL), the Seattle Police Department (SPD), Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), and the city’s Finance/Admin department (FAS) had alleged violations of Washington’s Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, failure to accommodate religious beliefs and wrongful termination.

In court documents obtained by The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI, the City argued that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate a bona fide religious belief that conflicted with the vaccine mandate. Thorp said that their objections were “secular concerns cloaked in religious vernacular.”

The city further argued that prayer alone does not convert a personal decision into a protected religious belief, citing federal case law that distinguishes personal or medical objections from religious practices.

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Defense Department Continues Ignoring Harms to Readiness by Pushing Flu Shots Contrary to Large Body of Evidence

After the tyrannical enforcement of the now-rescinded 2021 COVID-19 shot mandate, now determined to be “unlawful as implemented,” skepticism of all vaccines has clearly increased throughout the military community.

Sadly, some service members are facing punitive actions for objecting to the flu shot, having argued it is ineffective and detrimental to not only their health, but also their religious convictions. An anonymous Marine officer and Air Force Major Brennan Schilperoort share a similar moral and religious objection to the shot, while also suffering adverse effects from a previous injection. Additionally, both officers have also shown natural immunity.

Rather than recognizing their Constitutionally protected religious rights to substantiate their objection, the military has decided to separate both individuals from service. Although Maj. Schilperoort’s pay was restored by the Air Force, it must be noted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is aware of their situation, but has thus far remained silent on the issue of separation over the flu shot.

The Gateway Pundit spoke to independent journalist Jeremy Hammond, whose articles about the flu shot have elicited high praise from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

For Hammond, “The coerced vaccination of military service members is yet another unfortunate example of how the government systematically violates individuals’ right to informed consent.” He explained, “This policy exists despite scientific evidence indicating that getting an annual flu shot can actually increase the risk of influenza illness.”

A Cleveland Clinic study of their 54,402 employees during the 2024-2025 flu season found the flu shot was not effective in preventing the transmission of the respiratory illness. Results of the study can be found at MedRxiv, pronounced “med-archive,” an online platform used to share “preprints” in the medical, clinical, and health science fields.

The manuscript is a preprint, meaning it has not been peer-reviewed. Thus, “it reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice,” according to the site.

While some might question the validity and reliability of the research as a result, preprints are also known to allow for quicker dissemination of research, provide opportunities for feedback from the scientific community, or could simply be considered an early version of the research manuscript.

With these parameters in place to consider, the study found “in an analysis adjusted for age, sex, clinical nursing job, and employment location, the risk of influenza was significantly higher for the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated state, yielding a calculated vaccine effectiveness of −26.9%” [emphasis added]. Therefore, based on this data, it can be stated vaccinated individuals were 27 percent more likely to get the flu.

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New York Teachers Fired for Refusing COVID Vaccines Take Case to U.S. Supreme Court

A group of 19 teachers who sued the city of New York after they were denied religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review lower court rulings, which they allege unconstitutionally favored some religious beliefs over others.

In a petition filed Monday, the teachers allege that New York City granted religious exemptions only to people who belonged to religions whose leaders had not publicly endorsed COVID-19 vaccination.

The city denied requests by teachers who applied for exemptions based on personal religious beliefs that contradicted their religious leaders’ official support of the vaccines, the appeal said.

Michael Kane, a plaintiff in the case and founder of Teachers for Choice, said:

“What New York City did was so egregious. To allow this to stand sets a horrendous precedent for my children and grandchildren. The discrimination was so intense and constitutionally shoddy it must not be permitted.”

According to Kane, most of the teachers are “still out of work or doing odd jobs, making half their previous income.”

Although New York City Mayor Eric Adams rescinded the mandate in February 2023, the city didn’t rehire the teachers.

The case stems from two lawsuits filed in 2021 challenging New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and its denials of the religious exemption requests: Kane v. de Blasio and Keil v. City of New York. Children’s Health Defense is supporting the combined lawsuit.

Several lower courts, including the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in November 2024, ruled against the teachers.

The New York City Department of Education, its Chancellor, Melissa Aviles-Ramos, and New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan are among the defendants named in the combined lawsuit.

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Why Are Taxpayers Still Funding These Injection Mandates?

It was nerve wracking, to say the least; having a high school student who had gotten into his dream college in mid-December 2020 but was uncertain if he could attend the following fall due to Covid-19 vaccine mandates. Those harrowing days and nights we spent focusing on little else as we scoured college websites to eventually find what we pretty much expected would come to pass. 

It started in April of 2021 when Rutgers University and then Harvard University announced their students would be required to take Covid-19 vaccines prior to enrollment. In these early days, I remember thinking that surely, they will reveal some scientific data showing these vaccines could prevent transmission and severe illness or death to justify the mandates, but alas, the wait was in vain. 

Living up to their cult behavior reputation, by the summer of 2021, over 1,000 colleges announced the exact same fear-fueled narrative and implemented some of the world’s most oppressive mandate policies. By August, millions of college students would be mandated to take primary series Covid-19 vaccines prior to enrollment, many without enough notice to get their deposits back, transfer colleges, or even file for an exemption. The directive was clear: take these novel medical treatments with zero scientific evidence to show you need them, or don’t bother showing up. 

The best and brightest minds in academia never demanded to see the scientific data to justify their colleges’ strict mandate policies and never demanded the reasoning behind their administrations summoning a 100% compliance rate, but instead elevated the propaganda in lockstep fashion. To this day, it is astounding to think of what transpired and that so few questioned the lack of supporting science either because they were aghast to consider that our federal government was responsible for perpetrating the greatest crime against humanity the world has ever seen, or just because it was easier to comply and convince others to do the same. 

Some of us could see the writing on the wall. We knew colleges and universities were going to take this global pandemic opportunity to manipulate and control their vulnerable and young healthy adult populations into compliance, and that is exactly what they did. I kept hoping I was wrong, and once more data was released, these institutions would reverse course, but I was wrong then, and I still am now.

Health science students are still being coerced to take Covid-19 vaccines either prior to enrollment in their institutional program or prior to the start of their practical training at hospitals and clinical partner programs. In fact, they are the only college students still being coerced to take Covid-19 vaccines, and most of the time, it feels as though there is no end in sight.

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VICTORY! DOJ Drops Charges Against Hero Doctor Who Helped Patients Evade Vaccine Mandates

The Department of Justice has announced it is dropping charges against Utah plastic surgeon Dr. Kirk Moore for helping his patients avoid taking the dodgy COVID vaccines.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the decision in a post on the X platform.

“At my direction @TheJusticeDept has dismissed charges against Dr. Kirk Moore,” Bondi wrote.

”Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so.

“He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today.”

At my direction @TheJusticeDept has dismissed charges against Dr. Kirk Moore.

Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so. He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today.

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) July 12, 2025

This decision follows recent reporting by The Gateway Pundit about Dr. Moore and how he was facing 35 years in federal prison for his supposed crimes.

Among his various “crimes” included destroyeing thousands of vials of mRNA COVID vaccines, providing his patients with fake vaccination cards and injecting saline into children whose parents wanted them to believe they got vaccinated without risking potential side effects. 

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New York Supreme Court reinstates all employees fired for being unvaccinated, orders backpay

A New York state Supreme Court ordered all New York City employees who were fired for not being vaccinated to be reinstated with back pay.

The court found Monday that “being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting COVID-19.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams claimed earlier this year that his administration would not rehire employees who had been fired over their vaccination status.

NYC fired roughly 1,700 employees for being unvaccinated earlier this year after the city adopted a vaccine mandate under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Many of those fired were police officers and firefighters.

FDNY-Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro and FDNY-Uniformed Fire Officers Association President Lt. James McCarthy condemned Adams earlier this year after the mayor allowed an exception to the vaccine mandate for athletes and performers, even as firefighters were still being fired over their status. The pair called on the city to expand the exception to all New Yorkers.

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Judge Awards $4 Million to St. Louis Public School Employees Who Sued Over Vaccine Mandate

A jury ruled on Thursday in favor of 13 employees with the St. Louis Public Schools System who were forced to take the COVID vaccine despite religious objections.

The court awarded the 13 employees $4 million for the injustice.

According to Schrag on Law, the plaintiffs Wanda Brandon and over a dozen other current and former employees in the St. Louis Public Schools system,  sued the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis, Superintendent Kelvin Adams, and Chief Human Resources Officer Charles Burton in the Eastern District of Missouri raising claims of violations of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, Title VII religious discrimination, and the Missouri Human Rights Act.

In fall of 2021 during the height of the COVID pandemic, the St. Louis Board of Education adopted Policy 4624, requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 15, 2021, or obtain an approved exemption.

The sixteen original plaintiffs submitted religious exemption forms to their employer. The employees cited their Christian, Islamic and Pentacostal beliefs that conflicted with the vaccine that was developed from fetal cell lines.

The St. Louis Board denied all 189 of the religious exemption requests and forced the employees to take the experimental vaccine.

The Board then suspended or terminated the employees who refused to take the COVID vaccine.

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Military Couple Refuses to Surrender Constitutional Rights to the U.S. Air Force, As an Active-Duty Service Member’s Career Hangs in the Balance … With No Pay

The spouse of an active-duty member of the Air Force stands in the gap for her husband of 11 years. Together, the family is facing an uphill battle against the Department of Defense for exercising the innate rights of all U.S citizens, rights that service members do not relinquish.

Maj. Brennan Schilperoort is a C-130J transport aircraft pilot who has honorably served the nation in the Air Force for over 17 years. Maj. Schilperoort applied for a flu shot medical exemption in November 2023, previously having a severe adverse reaction to it, but the Air Force refused him consideration. Another service member he personally knows was granted a medical exemption that same month for “headaches.”

With evidence mounting about the safety, efficacy, testing, and research surrounding the unlawful COVID-19 shot mandate since 2021, Maj. Schilperoort also discovered significant issues surrounding the flu shots. Medical options exhausted, he asserted his Constitutionally-protected rights in December 2023 to object to the flu vaccine for moral and religious reason, requesting a Religious Accommodation. The request was ignored in violation of the Air Force’s own regulations and the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

While those who ignore regulations continue to walk scot-free, Maj. Schilperoort was punished for his decision. While his case is still in appeal, the C-130J pilot has been placed on a no-pay status since mid-March for taking an objection grounded in his faith and the Constitution.

Davis Younts, Maj. Schilperoort’s military defense attorney with 23 years of experience, stresses that removing pay from an officer like this is “in my experience only reserved for violent criminals or those already incarcerated.” Interestingly, it should also be noted that the Air Force pilot has not had a documented case of the flu nor has he had the shot in the last four years. The Air Force allowed him to continue working alongside his coworkers the entire time.

Still considered an active-duty service member (emphasis added), Maj. Brennan Schilperoort is no longer able to provide for his family, having gone without pay for three months while appealing his case. If the pending appeal is denied, he will also face administrative separation from the Air Force he has faithfully served for most of his adult life.

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