From our inception, protecting religious freedom has been a pillar of our mission here at We The Patriots USA. We have won victories for parents, students, and employees all over the country, and this year we’ve taking it to the next level. We currently have active litigation to win back the religious exemption to school vaccination mandates in every state where it’s been stolen from families.
Religious exemptions to vaccinations required for K-12 school attendance are not currently permitted in California, New York, Connecticut, or Maine. We have a federal lawsuit now pending at the Second Circuit, which if successful would win back the religious exemption for families in Connecticut and New York. We also filed a federal lawsuit in California aimed at restoring the religious exemption for families in the Golden State. And on July 16, 2026, we filed a federal lawsuit in Maine, on behalf of a student being denied entry to eighth grade for his religious objection to vaccines. Each of these lawsuits provides us with a path to potential Supreme Court review, where we will be seeking to establish nationwide, long-lasting legal precedent to protect the religious liberty rights of every American family.
We The Patriots USA Vice-President and Co-Founder Brian Festa, Esq. released the following statement regarding the organization’s campaign to win back religious exemptions:
“Whether your family has religious freedom should not depend on your zip code. This is the United States of America, and religious freedom is a right granted to us by God, and guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution. We will not stand idly by while states continue to flagrantly disregard this most precious liberty in the name of a nonexistent ‘public health crisis.’ These states have no evidence that religious exemptions were ever to blame for any epidemic of illness, or that they will ever cause one in the future. We cannot continue to allow religious freedom to be stolen from parents and children on the basis of hypotheticals and fear campaigns. That’s why We The Patriots USA made a commitment to initiate litigation in every state where religious exemptions to vaccinations required for K-12 school attendance have been eliminated, and in any state where they are eliminated in the future.”
To support our efforts to win back the religious exemption for school vaccinations, as well as all of our other legal work in defense of your Constitutional rights, please consider making a one-time or monthly donation to We The Patriots USA. Monthly donations are especially helpful because they provide us with a predictable stream of income with which we can more effectively budget for new lawsuits and educational programs and events.
Donations to We The Patriots USA can be made here.
And to learn more about the legal work of We The Patriots USA visit wethepatriotsusa.org/legal-updates, and subscribe to our email list and text alerts to receive all the latest legal news and updates.