Although they deny it, religious freedom is constantly under attack from the left, and these days they win more battles than they lose, successfully fighting against crosses, commandments and cakes. Even though I'm not religious I find it disheartening to see so much of our history and culture being tossed into the memory hole on the orders of people who worship the government as their personal savior.
Therefore my day was momentarily brightened when I saw this little bit of news about freedom from vaccines:
Saint Vincent Health Center To Pay $300,000 To Settle EEOC Religious Accommodation Lawsuit
I can't even begin to express my shock. The government (in the form of the EEOC) fined Saint Vincent Health $330,000 for insisting that their employees either get flu shots or bring notes from either clergy or MDs validating a religious or medical exemption. Anybody not getting an exemption request approved was fired.
Here's where it gets sticky: While all 14 medical exemptions were approved, all 6 religious exemptions were denied and all 6 employees who filed them were fired.
According to the decision, the hospital has no right to insist that their employees prove their religious beliefs, and thus the requirement that the exemption be "approved" by clergy was illegal.
Remember when I said my day was momentarily brightened? Well, here's the thing: I believe people have the right to refuse vaccines, but I also believe that employers, even hospitals should have a right to hire and fire at will. Unless I miss my guess, Saint Vincent is a Catholic hospital, and there's nothing in Catholicism that prohibits vaccines. So while they should have the right not to dispense birth control, they are perfectly within their rights to insist that their employees get vaccines.
Which put the government in the position of either defending the rights of workers (even the religious workers) or defending the rights of private employers. And since the federal government consistently fights against the rights of employers, it appears it had to pick religion as the winner in this instance.
Sort of sucked the joy right out of me.
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