The U.S. Supreme Court and Pandemic Restrictions on Religious Worship

Frederick Mark Gedicks is Guy Anderson Chair and Professor of Law in the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University

The current pandemic has presented challenges to normal life in the United States and elsewhere, including to the free exercise of religion. The U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in several times on COVID-related free exercise claims; though these are summary dispositions, they illuminate a doctrinal fault line that is likely to emerge in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (3rdCir. 2019), a free-exercise case currently pending before the Court.

The Supreme Court’s Jurisprudence on Pandemic Restrictions

Employment Division v. Smith (1990) famously held that the First  Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion does not include the right of believers to be excused from complying with generally applicable laws that incidentally burden their religious beliefs or practices. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (1993) clarified that Smith does not apply to laws which target religion with burdens from which comparable secular activities are relieved. Together, Smith and Lukumi transformed the free exercise of religion in the U.S. from a liberty to an equality right more consistent with the rule of law: believers are to be treated no better than other people, but also no worse.

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Religious Exceptions to COVID Vaccine Mandates

Doriane Lambelet Coleman is Professor of Law at Duke Law School, Senior Fellow at Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics, and Associate of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine

Just as individual cells are permeable so that disease can move from cell to cell and spread within our bodies, so too our bodies are permeable so that disease can move from individual to individual and spread within our communities. Those who’ve recovered from infectious disease typically have some degree of immunity, which results from the antibodies we develop to fight the infection.  Like soldiers who’ve defeated the enemy and stand guard for a time to repel further invasions, antibodies linger in our cells, remembering the disease and how to fight it if it returns.  The immunity that comes from having survived disease may be incomplete or temporary, but so long as it resides within us, we’re unlikely to become ill again ourselves, and we’re also unlikely to contaminate others.

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Religion and a COVID-19 Vaccine—a Complex Question with Complex Answers

Dr. Renae Barker is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, Business, Law, and Education at the University of Western Australia

An earlier version of this blogpost appeared at The G20 Interfaith Forum Blog.

As the world edges closer to viable vaccines against COVID-19, attention is turning to how that vaccine will be rolled out. Central to this question is the extent to which states may make the vaccine mandatory. Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has indicated he would like to see a 95% vaccination rate once a vaccine is available. In Australia, debate has recently turned to the ethics of the vaccine being developed at Oxford University and the implications for freedom of religion should this vaccine prove to be the most viable candidate.

The vaccine being developed at Oxford University uses cell lines originally taken from an aborted foetus from the 1970s. While the practice of using cell-lines taken from a foetus is generally accepted by the scientific community as ethical, this does not allay religious concerns with the practice.

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