Just days after arguing before the Ninth Circuit that religious exemptions to required school vaccinations should be restored in California, We The Patriots USA counsel appeared before the Second Circuit to make the same argument for the restoration of religious exemptions in Connecticut. The case was Milford Christian Church et al. v. Beth Bye et al., and involved the state trying to shut down a Christian church’s daycare and preschool because the church continued to allow families to use religious exemptions to vaccinations, even after the state abolished those exemptions in 2021.
Just this week, the Connecticut state legislature doubled down, passing a bill that provides broad authority for the state’s public health commissioner to add vaccines to the list of vaccines already required for students in the state, and paving the way for the state to mandate vaccinations for adults as well. The bill also amended the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to remove religious liberty protections for anyone who asserts a religious objection to school vaccinations, because the state is currently facing trial on a RFRA claim in two state court lawsuits (one brought by WTP USA), and a judge earlier this year refused to grant the state’s motion to dismiss on that claim.
But the state cannot write a law to bypass the United States Constitution, which is why the Milford Christian case is so important. The argument went well, with the judges expressing a willingness to consider applying the recent Supreme Court precedent of Mahmoud v. Taylor to the facts of the case, which would require the state to undergo strict scrutiny for its 2021 repeal of the religious exemption to school vaccinations. That would mean that the state would have the burden of proving that it had a compelling interest, such as a public health emergency, to abolish school religious exemptions, and that it did so by the least restrictive means. We argued that the state would clearly not be able to survive strict scrutiny, a position which appears to be shared by the state’s Attorney General William Tong, who proposed the aforementioned legislative change to RFRA as soon the judge denied the state’s motion to dismiss on that claim. To win on the RFRA claim, the state would also need to prove strict scrutiny.
For a full breakdown of the oral argument at the Second Circuit, and the complete argument audio, visit https://wethepatriotsusa.substack.com/p/what-happened-at-the-second-circuit.
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