On Friday, August 8, 2025, a federal judge in the District Court of Connecticut dismissed the lawsuit we brought on behalf of Milford Christian Church and its daycare and preschool, Little Eagles. In its 28-page decision, the court found that the state did not display hostility to the church when it threatened to shut down its school unless the church expelled all of the students who had religious objections to vaccinations, and refused to violate those beliefs. The court also found that Connecticut’s law eliminating the religious exemption to school vaccinations did not violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
We strongly disagree with this decision, and we hope you do, too. That’s why we are already immediately preparing an appeal to the Second Circuit. We The Patriots USA Vice-President and Co-Founder Brian Festa, Esq., issued the following statement about the decision:
“While we are obviously very disappointed by this outcome, it was not unexpected, and it is certainly not the end of the road for this case. We said from the outset when we filed this lawsuit that we were prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that’s exactly what we intend to do. So this decision actually accelerates that process, as it moves us one step closer to our ultimate goal of victory at the U.S. Supreme Court. This was a direct attack on a religious institution by the State of Connecticut, the kind of attack that the Framers of our Constitution clearly intended to prohibit when they drafted the First Amendment. We cannot allow such blatant religious discrimination to stand unchecked.”
If you agree that this decision needs to be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and you would like to support that effort, please consider a gift to our mission today.