, 2021
To whom it may concern:
Regarding Executive (EO) 14043, “Requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees,” my sincerely held religious beliefs as a Christian do not allow me to receive this vaccination.
Each of the manufacturers of the currently available COVID-19 vaccinations developed and confirmed their vaccinations using fetal cell lines, which originated from aborted fetuses. For example, each of the currently available COVID-19 manufacturers confirmed their vaccination by protein testing using the abortion-derived cell line HEK-293.
By receiving the COVID-19 vaccination, I would be cooperating with the testing of vaccinations on aborted fetus cells which constitutes a grave offense.
See Paragraph 2272 of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, any compliance with EO 14043 would substantially burden my religious exercise. I have been a Christian since I was baptized shortly after my birth and received my first Holy Communion within the Catholic Church at the age of seven. Sacred scripture espouses that all Christian effort is to avoid eternal death through the dynamic communion with God in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. I am of the opinion that in participating with the sin of abortion by receiving any of the currently available COVID-19 vaccinations would potentially result in my spiritual death. The Church has held since antiquity that spiritual death is magnitudes less desirable than physical death because spiritual death results in the eternal suffering of our souls.
See Revelation 21:8. In espousing this opinion, I note that Courts have ruled that genuinely held beliefs involving matters of the afterlife, spirituality, or the soul, among other possibilities qualifies as religion under Title VII.
See Adeyeye v. Heartland Sweeteners, LLC, 721 F.3d 444, 448 (7th Cir. 2013).
Additionally, the Catholic Church has held that vaccinations must be voluntary and to do so otherwise would offend practical reason.
See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Paragraph 5. 17 December 2020. This position was recently affirmed in a public statement by Archbishop Timothy Brogli during which His Excellency stated, “no one should be forced to receive a COVID-19 vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of his or her conscience.”
See Statement on Coronavirus Vaccines and the Sanctity of Conscience. 12 October 2021.
I have never taken take a vaccination or medication with foreknowledge that the manufacturer developed and confirmed the product using fetal cells lines nor will I ever do so in the future for the above stated reasons.
In lieu of taking the COVID-19 vaccination, I am requesting a reasonable accommodation. My accommodation would not pose a significant risk of substantial harm to myself or other employees because I am a fulltime remote worker. Since March 2020, I have been able to fulfill my job duties from home. Accordingly, <insert employer> does not face any undue hardship in continuing to permit me to work remotely. I am willing to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test result in the event that I have to appear onsite.
I am available to answer any additional questions if needed, provided they are a "reasonable inquiry," as allowed for by law. Please note that the law does not recognize the need for employers to consult religious scholars or examine church doctrine regarding the vaccination. A religious exemption request is made by each individual, based on their sincerely held religious, ethical and/or moral beliefs - not the tenets or beliefs of a church, doctrine, religion or religious scholars.
See Title VII, section 12, note 2.
Finally, I note that courts have long held that the threshold for establishing the religious nature of beliefs is low; under the First Amendment, “if there is any doubt about whether a particular set of beliefs constitutes a religion, the Court will err on the side of freedom and find that the beliefs are a religion . . . [because the country’s] founders were animated in large part by a desire for religious liberty”,
aff’d,
United States v. Myers, 95 F.3d 1475, 1482-83 (10th Cir. 1996);
see also Emp’t Div., Dep’t of Human Res. of Or. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 887, 887 (1990) (explaining in Free Exercise Clause case that “[r]epeatedly and in many different contexts, we have warned that courts must not presume to determine the place of a particular belief in a religion or the plausibility of a religious claim”).
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