When a congregant recently told Strauss that the Torah supported refusing the COVID vaccines, Strauss engaged the man in conversation and found that his concerns weren’t actually religious. Given the value that a co-sign from a religious leader can provide, I asked Brian Strauss, the senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Yeshurun, a synagogue in Houston, about his approach to talking with people looking to obtain an exemption. But no objective test determines whether an individual’s request is genuine, which leaves the judgment entirely up to companies. Religious exemptions from vaccines are currently allowed in 44 states and Washington, D.C., and they typically require an employer to provide reasonable accommodation for “sincerely held” religious beliefs. Instead, faith leaders I spoke with are trying to assuage congregants’ misgivings about the vaccines, and are pushing back against attempts to circumvent public-health measures with scripture. Many people requesting exemptions have tried to strengthen their case with a written statement from a religious leader, but to some clergy, agreeing to support a person’s claim feels unjustifiable. In private Facebook groups, for instance, people swap tips on how to convince employers that they don’t need a shot, while others are hiring consulting services for help obtaining an exemption. Some people are seeking ways to skirt the obligation, and religious exemptions, which stipulate that a person’s spiritual beliefs can free them from a medical requirement, present one way to do so. Such questions, particularly about the applicability of religious exemptions, have become more urgent during the pandemic, forcing clergy to take hard stances for or against excusals.Įven though the Supreme Court recently struck down a federal vaccine-or-test mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees, many Americans still must receive a COVID-19 vaccine in order to resume in-person work. So when faith leaders face questions about immunizations, they generally offer their own interpretations of the scriptures. Religious texts such as the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran don’t say anything about vaccines-of course, all three texts predate them by hundreds of years.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |