Religious exemptions to vaccine mandates could test "sincerely held beliefs"

Some evangelical pastors are reportedly providing religious exemption documents to members of their churches, and right-wing forums are sharing strategies to skirt vaccination requirements. Religious freedom groups are sending threatening letters to states, schools and employers and preparing legal challenges to fight vaccination mandates…

Thomas Berg, a self-described “strong supporter of religious exemptions” and a religious liberty advocate who teaches law at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution in St. Paul, Minnesota, said he believes that there is a strong case to deny many of the religious claims and to test religious sincerity.

“In cases where you’ve got a lot of potential insincere claims — and I think there’s evidence that is what’s happening here in which people are raising religious objections when they’re motivated by fear of the vaccine or political opposition to it — testing sincerity makes sense,” he said. “We have to test sincerity or else we have to accept them all or deny them all, so I think the courts will provide room for testing that.”