Federal Court Restores Religious Exemption to Vaccination in Mississippi
A federal court has ruled that the First Amendment demands that the state of Mississippi permit a religious exemption to vaccination for school children by July 15, 2023. Judge Halil S. Ozerden’s order bars state health officials and anyone acting under their direction from enforcing Mississippi Code § 41-23-37, compulsory school vaccination law, unless an opt out provision for religious exemption is provided.1
Mississippi allows medical exemptions to mandatory vaccination laws which require that all children receive vaccinations for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DPT), measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), polio, hepatitis, and chicken pox in order to attend public or private school. The six plaintiffs in this case argued that by offering a secular exemption to mandatory vaccination laws, school officials demonstrated that exceptions to the law could be made but they simply chose to exclude children whose reason for not vaccinating were religious in violation of the U.S. Constitution.2
The court’s monumental decision allows parents with sincerely held religious beliefs to follow their conscience and religious beliefs while still providing their children with a school education. Many of these parents were forced to home school their children or their families had to move out of state so that the children could attend school. One of the plaintiffs in this case is a pastor who was forced to exclude his own daughter from a private Christian school he runs due to her vaccination status.
The law firm Siri & Gilmsted, LLP represented the plaintiffs and funding for the litigation was provided by Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN).3 Attorneys for the plaintiffs said,
Plaintiffs are incredibly heartened that a federal court agreed that the State cannot afford a secular exemption without affording a religious exemption and that doing so violated the First Amendment.4
Mississippi’s previous religion exemption was overturned in 1979 on the premise that vaccinated children had a constitutional right to not associate with the unvaccinated.5 Mississippi state spokesperson, Liz Sharlot, has not said whether the state officials will appeal the ruling.6
After the court’s decision, only five states are left without a religious exemption to mandatory vaccination, California, Connecticut, Maine, New York and West Virginia.7 8
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