Barrett and Kavanaugh Supply Another Majority to Deny Religious-Liberty Exemption

For the second time in less than two months, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh joined with Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court’s three progressives (Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan) to uphold a state vaccine mandate over a religious-liberty challenge by medical professionals.

This time, it was New York’s vaccine mandate, which initially included an exemption for religious objectors. These objectors included some Catholics and other Christians who oppose abortion. The vaccines are derived in part from abortion — specifically, from fetal-cell lines used in vaccine production and testing. Nevertheless, when Kathy Hochul replaced Andrew Cuomo as governor, she stripped the religious exemption from the mandate, making the astonishing acknowledgment that she had done so “intentionally” because those who resisted vaccination “aren’t listening to God and what God wants.”

The state’s mandate provides an exemption for those who claim to object on medical grounds. Consequently, the mandate blatantly discriminates against religion — and, as Hochul has made clear, quite purposefully so. In addition to depriving religious objectors of their jobs, Hochul’s revised mandate also makes them ineligible for unemployment-insurance benefits.