On October 29, 2021, the Supreme Court denied an injunction request filed by Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group representing over 2,000 religious healthcare workers in Maine. Liberty Counsel represents the employees in a pending request for certiorari before the High Court.
Liberty Counsel filed the request for injunction in an effort to stop the firing of some health workers for refusing to violate their faith by complying with an emergency rule issued in Maine.
The Maine rule required all health employees in the state to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, by October 1, 2021, or suffer enforcement consequences, to include loss of employment.
Maine’s emergency rule permits requests for nonreligious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination, while omitting any mechanism for health workers to request vaccination exemption based on their constitutionally protected religious beliefs.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to deny the injunction, Liberty Counsel confirmed some workers “were terminated” from their jobs. The Court has yet to decide whether to hear the petition for certiorari being brought by the health workers.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued a statement agreeing with the Court’s decision to deny the injunction; she was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Barrett argued it would be unwise for the Court to grant the “extraordinary relief” of an injunction, particularly where the health worker’s pending request for certiorari, if accepted, would be among “the first to address the questions presented.” Justice Barrett indicated that she believed a full briefing and oral arguments were necessary.
According to Liberty Counsel, “[t]he Supreme Court needs to resolve the splits in the circuits and the lower courts. Only Maine, New York, and Rhode Island have state executive orders banning employers from even considering the sincere religious beliefs of employees.”
“The requirement is constitutional,” wrote Maine Attorney General Aaron M. Frey in defending the state’s decision to exclude religious exemptions. Frey issued the statement following the Court’s decision to deny the injunction; he did not address the petition for certiorari being brought by Liberty Counsel on behalf of over 2,000 of Maine’s health workers.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, disagreeing with the Court’s decision to deny the injunction, issued a dissent. He was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
“Their plight is worthy of our attention,” said Justice Gorsuch, writing that Maine’s “healthcare workers who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered. All for adhering to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs.”
Justice Gorsuch summarized the religious objection of the health workers, explaining “that receiving the COVID-19 vaccines violates their faith because of what they view as an impermissible connection between the vaccines and the cell lines of aborted fetuses.”
“Four of the most terrifying words in the Bible are ‘God gave them over’ (Romans 1:24-28),” writes Jan Markell. The point that Markell makes is that when there is widespread rejection of God within a society, the result is a rapid increase in secularization and godlessness.
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