COVID Vaccine Mandates – The New Battleground for Civil Liberties
June Newsletter
Advocates has been heavily engaged in civil rights battles since the early days of the pandemic. While the government has lifted some restrictions on personal liberty, the next wave of legal challenges across the country will be in the vaccine mandates arena.
We have been receiving hundreds of inquiries about COVID-19 vaccines. While adult vaccine mandates are unprecedented, and the legality has yet to be answered in court, there are serious constitutional issues implicated. Below is an outline of the current state of the law and a few cases Advocates has taken on to help set sound legal precedent in this new area of law.
Right now, all COVID vaccines in the U.S. are authorized by the FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) only. The U.S. Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires that the recipient of an EUA approved product have “the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.” Requiring a product under emergency use authorization would, on the face of it, run contrary to this law. We have created a vaccine exemption form for employees and students based on EUA law. It can be found on our website at faith-freedom.com. Once the vaccines are FDA approved, this law will no longer apply. However, there are legal grounds for religious and medical accommodations.
With private employers, if a company requires employees to get a vaccine, they must grant reasonable accommodations for certain medical and religious objections, unless the accommodation would place an undue hardship on the employer. Advocates is currently representing an employee that was unjustly fired after requesting accommodation. The employer in that case did not even consider an accommodation, which is in violation of the law.
Advocates also filed a lawsuit last month against Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and Los Angeles County officials from continuing to implement their protocol for returning to in-person learning. We represent parents who refuse to submit their children to routine, invasive PCR testing, forced downloading and use of the Microsoft app “Daily Pass” to collect and disseminate the children’s private health data, and the covering of children’s faces all day while in school. We also anticipate that LAUSD will mandate student COVID vaccines, which will likely be added to our lawsuit in the near future.
In an existing Advocates lawsuit, Calvary Chapel San Jose v. Santa Clara County, we added vaccines to the fight. Santa Clara County requires that all businesses, including churches, determine and keep a record of the vaccination status of their employees and volunteers. This represents yet another unlawful intrusion on the church under the guise of public health.
It has been about 16 months since Advocates started fighting overly intrusive COVID-19 regulations, and we will continue to fight and take on this new wave of government intrusion. After all, doesn’t the “my body, my choice” logic apply here? We hear that phrase used to wrongly justify murdering a baby, but here it is actually applicable where we are being forced to inject something into our body and not given a choice.
We do not tire. We persevere. Thanks to you, we have resources to continue the fight. Please continue to stick with us, pray for us, and consider financially supporting us as we continue to stand on the frontlines in this legal and spiritual battle.
One final note: Advocates for Truth, our media platform that provides Biblical perspective on cultural issues, has published a video featuring two medical experts on the content of the COVID-19 vaccines. It’s a must see! Go to www.advocatesfortruth.com to view.