A federal court should strike down a New York law that revoked religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements, a group that stated that it works to keep children safe stated in a new lawsuit on Dec. 15.
Children’s Health Defense, the group formerly headed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings in its filing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
In one of those rulings, justices ruled in favor of parents in Maryland who sought to keep their children out of classrooms during a period in which instruction was based on books that promote lesbian, gay, and similar lifestyles.
The court stated that parents have the right to direct their children’s religious upbringing and that, when the government violates that right through policies that substantially interfere with children’s religious development, officials must prove that the policy in question advances compelling interests and is “narrowly tailored to achieve those interests.”
In the other ruling, justices vacated a lower court decision that had sided with New York officials and the state’s repeal of religious exemptions for school vaccine mandates. The justices directed that the court reconsider the case in light of its Maryland ruling.
New York’s refusal to allow any religious exemptions is not narrowly tailored to protect public health, in part because it does not cover students aged 18 or older or teachers, according to attorneys representing Children’s Health Defense.
“Recent Supreme Court rulings make it clear that New York’s 2019 repeal of religious exemptions must be judged under the highest legal standard: strict scrutiny,” Sujata Gibson, one of the lawyers, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“This is a test that New York objectively cannot survive.
“The arbitrary nature of this law, which allows hundreds of thousands of teachers and students older than the age of 18 to attend school without regard to vaccination status while penalizing a small group of religious families, proves this is not about public health. It is about government overreach and a clear hostility toward accommodating religion. Nearly all other states allow religious exemptions without any material difference in public health outcomes.”
A spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health declined to comment.
State officials said in a recent brief to the Supreme Court that the law survives strict scrutiny because “the repeal bill was narrowly tailored to address the precise cause of the recent decrease in immunization rates that threatened herd immunity in certain communities—increased reliance on the religious exemption—by eliminating that exemption.”
Plaintiffs in the new case include children whose families have been forced to move to other states that still allow religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates, according to the group.
Others still live in New York but commute to schools in other states to avoid New York’s updated vaccination scheme. Still others have or face expulsion because officials have moved against medical exemptions they received from doctors.
“Families and children are in urgent need of relief and suffering severe harm under this regime,” Gibson said.
“We are moving immediately for emergency relief to end this discriminatory system and restore fundamental religious freedom for all New Yorkers.”