Vaccine mandates: How sincere is a ‘sincerely held belief’?

Over the past year, a significant number of American workers on both the right and left have expressed political objections to getting a vaccine.  

Many have appealed to ideas of individual freedom, personal choice, and the integrity of their bodies, or concerns over the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines that were developed and tested in a relatively short amount of time.

But as new state and federal mandates begin to require vaccination as a necessary condition for workplace safety, many U.S. employers have been receiving a growing number of requests from employees seeking exemptions based on their religious objections.

Such requests have a long and sometimes contentious history in American workplaces. Yet the country’s robust civil rights traditions have generally given workers with “sincerely held religious beliefs” a lot of leeway, so long as the accommodations they seek to exercise their faith freely do not cost employers more than a minimal expense.

As the delta variant created a surge in caseload this summer, overwhelming a number of hospitals in states with lower rates of vaccination,

Religious exemption requests on riseBeliefs of an individual, not a denomination