Nathan Berkeley, RFI’s Communications Director, was interviewed on CBN News about the current debate over religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates. 

With the proliferation of these mandates in the last several months, many people of faith have been considering how to proceed in light of their objections to complying with them.

Berkeley highlights the importance of sorting out the underlying reasons for one’s objection to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. While all religious exemption claims should be given due consideration, and fairly and expeditiously adjudicated, to be valid the claims themselves must be rooted in the claimaint’s religious beliefs rather than policy objections to the mandates themselves. Accordingly, Berkeley emphasized the importance of ensuring that religious exemptions are properly applied, explaining: “Religious exemptions are meant to be a remedy for a particular kind of issue, and just objecting to bad policy is not what religious exemptions are for.”

He continues: 

A lot of people have political views about the vaccines and vaccine mandates, which are deeply held and which are based on some principles that they take very seriously – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that those principles at play are intertwined or linked with their religious convictions. We do encourage everyone as they look at this issue generally to keep those two things separated.

Read the article and watch the interview on CBN News: ‘Sincerely Held Belief’ Key to Religious Objection over COVID Vaccine.