Is it just me, or is New York being overran by a bunch of communist Democrats? A small Amish school in Chautauqua County, New York, could be the reason the U.S. Supreme Court gets dragged back into the messy fight over religious exemptions from vaccine requirements. The case involves Shady Lane School in the town of Clymer, which the state Health Department hit with a $20,000 fine in 2022 for refusing to comply with New York’s school vaccination rules.
Joseph Miller and other Amish plaintiffs say they “possess fervent religious objections to injecting their children with vaccines.” Their argument is straightforward: if New York allows medical exemptions, it should allow religious exemptions too. Legal analyst Michael Macomber, a partner and CEO at Tully Rinckey PLLC, put it plainly. “There is a medical exemption, right, that students, parents can opt out based on medical reasons and therefore, if you can opt out for medical reasons, you should be allowed to opt out for religious reasons,” he said.
New York, of course, disagrees. The state insists its vaccine mandate is a neutral public health rule that applies to everyone equally and has nothing to do with religion. Macomber summed up Albany’s position: “This is a health requirement. It has to do with physical health and safety. It’s neutral on its face. It applies to everyone.” The plaintiffs lost at the district court level, lost again at the Second Circuit, got a brief glimmer of hope when the Supreme Court sent the case back down for reconsideration after a ruling that strengthened parental rights claims, and then lost at the Second Circuit again in June. The appeals court decided the burden on their religious beliefs wasn’t quite heavy enough to trigger the toughest constitutional scrutiny.
Now they’re knocking on the Supreme Court’s door a second time. Amish vaccine exemption case shows the First Liberty Institute, one of the groups representing the Amish families, is not giving up. “Ultimately this is about who is the authority over your children,” said Kelly Shackelford, First Liberty’s president, CEO and chief counsel. “Is it the parents, or is it the government bureaucrat that controls those decisions.”
Meanwhile, the timing could not be more complicated. New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state disaster emergency this month over a measles outbreak that she and state officials describe as the largest in a generation. Western New York has logged 12 confirmed cases this year, with more spreading east. Pennsylvania is also dealing with a major outbreak, and Amish communities have been hit particularly hard. State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald has already credited New York’s elimination of religious exemptions with keeping outbreaks manageable, telling 7 News, “We do get a case or two, but our local health departments have done a great job of containing it.” Convenient timing for Albany’s legal argument, to say the least.
Macomber acknowledged the outbreak gives the state extra ammunition. “A lot of that pressure is going to come into play as well, and it does weigh in favor of the arguments that this is really, in fact, a health concern,” he said. As for when this gets resolved, he had a refreshingly honest answer: “Oh, that’s the million-dollar question. I honestly don’t know.”
The Supreme Court hasn’t decided yet whether it will take the case. If the justices say yes, the whole country will be watching to see whether a government can wipe out religious exemptions entirely in the name of public health. New York’s mandate stays in place for now, Amish families in Clymer are still in a legal fight for their parental rights, and somewhere in Albany, a government bureaucrat is apparently convinced he knows better than mom and dad.
