If you continue to refuse getting the COVID-19 vaccine, a quick question — why?
Are you fearful or skeptical about this vaccine or all vaccines? Is it stubborn pride after months of steadfast rejection? Is it still the concern of putting a fast-tracked vaccine into your body? Or does your decision have something to do with national politics?
The latest reasoning that’s rising in popularity are religious exemptions against vaccine mandates in the workplace. I find this to be a convenient excuse to bolster some people’s refusal of rolling up their sleeve. In fact, I’m expecting millions of U.S. workers to suddenly find religion to avoid these mandates.
Atheists have long been accused of finding Jesus in foxholes, so it’s only fair that vaccine deniers get accused of only embracing religion for such a shameful reason. It’s not that there’s some sort of religion passport like there is a vaccination passport, proving someone’s religious convictions. Science is more quantifiable than belief. It can’t be accepted just on someone’s word, not even from Dr. Anthony Fauci.
This matter boils down to employers basing a judgment on an employee’s sincere religious convictions. The pivotal word here is sincere. How many workers will play the religious card to avoid getting the vaccine? And how would employers determine who’s sincere versus who’s not. It’s a complicated minefield of potential legal challenges.
It’s not like any of the major religions have publicly opposed the COVID-19 vaccine, giving its followers a valid stamp of disapproval on their exemption request. Last month, Pope Francis told believers that getting vaccinated is an “act of love.“
“Getting vaccinated is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable,” the Pope said in a video. “Love for oneself, love for our families and friends, and love for all peoples. Love is also social and political.”
It’s not often you hear those two words — love and political — in the same sentence. Or the same prayer.
Religious exemption rights trace back to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, protecting workers from discrimination on the basis of religion, among other things. But when does religious freedom, whether it’s sincere or not, become a contagion for public harm to others? Conversely, will employers be bold enough to ask workers for their histories on church attendance or other vaccinations? I don’t think so.
With so many workers claiming this exemption to avoid the vaccine, public health and herd immunity may be jeopardized, experts say. Employers must provide reasonable accommodations to workers seeking religious exemptions unless it poses an undue hardship. I say, “undue hardship” goes both ways. And I’ve felt this way long before COVID-19 vaccines came into our lives.
In 2009, I began a column with this line: “To vaccinate or not to vaccinate — that is the question these days.” It addressed the newest vaccine at the time for the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, and the public backlash against it. “It doesn’t help that the government is behind the new vaccine, which only attracts more conspiracy theories against its safety and necessity,” I wrote.
Sound familiar?
Fast forward to 2021 and I’m hearing similar reasoning by misinformed lemmings who demand special exemptions from science.
For instance, those people claiming to have health concerns about what’s going into their body with the COVID-19 vaccine. Come on, they haven’t cared about what’s going into their body for most of their life, from their first Happy Meal to their latest two-liter of Mountain Dew. And it’s obvious. They. Haven’t. Cared.
Take a moment to think about all the unhealthy substances we’ve eaten or guzzled or inhaled throughout the duration of our life. Fast food. Cheap snacks. Red meats. Salt. Sugar. Caffeine. Prescription pills. Illegal substances. This list is lengthy and lethal. It all adds up to tons of toxic crap that will likely lead to our premature death. Heart disease will always kill more Americans than a virus.
The Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker shows that heart disease was the No. 1 killer of Americans in September claiming 2,078 lives per day. COVID-19 killed 1,899 per day, topping cancer’s 1,636. The report shows that COVID-19 was the No. 1 cause of death in early 2021 before dipping to the No. 7 position in July, before the delta variant began killing primarily unvaccinated people. It was the No. 1 killer of Americans 35-54 in September, the report shows.
Yet some people are taking a public stand against the “dangerous” ingredients of this vaccine, which has been proven to save lives. For this group of people, it’s time to put down that whopper of a rationalization and roll up your sleeve.
Here’s another misguided reason I’m hearing from the anti-vaccine crowd: “I would have gotten it if there wasn’t such a push to get it.” What? A public health campaign scared you away from getting the shot for the public good? Are you also against vaccines for polio and smallpox? How about stoplights, seat belts, littering and wildfire prevention.
In my lifetime, I’ve gotten used to religion infecting science in the name of God. It’s as old as the Big Bang or the Bible, take your pick. One of my favorite spokesmen for science, the late Carl Sagan, saw what’s happening today from a quarter century ago.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time when … we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness … especially a kind of celebration of ignorance,” he wrote in 1995.
I call it more of a contagion of ignorance. And it’s impossible not to notice.
