State child-welfare worker who believes her body is God's temple sues state for trying to make her get Covid-19 shots

that aren't exactly in line with one major religion or another. In fact, I would encourage it.

But they need to be able to demonstrate that the "sincerely held religious belief" goes back more than a few months.

I expected a little better from you than

Why is someone who is this religious working in DCF?

She is most likely working for DCF because the essence of being a Christian is doing glory to God by helping you fellow person and by helping those who need the most help, such as children in the DCF system.

Criticize her vaccine choice all you want, but at least try to learn the tenants of the most common religion in America. And do remember that America was founded based on religious liberty, so disqualifying Christians from working for the government is just as allowed as disqualifying Jews and Muslims from the same jobs, in that it is not allowed.

The pope also makes shit up. Because she isn’t a powerful male doesn’t make her religious claims any less religious …. or any less or more full of shit.

I recently made friends with a Jesuit in Rome. Super nice guy... He plays video games and is geeky.

Is it Father Robert Ballecer?

As someone who is frequently hired by DCF to do evaluations and hired by attorneys and the courts to do evaluations and expert witnessing on DCF cases, I can definitely tell you that "I do what I want without regard for research or best practices" is pretty typical over there.

I'm not even going to say that all or most of the problem is fundies though, because I see plenty of workers who identify as progressive who do this same thing. One of my specialty areas is LGBTQ youth and parents, and the problem there is usually not a worker who says "god says this is a sin" but one who says "my nephew's neighbor is trans and he went to a gender specialist, so this other trans kid who didn't feel the need is fake-trans and the parents have Munchausen's." I also regularly see shit in writing like that letting a child drink soda or taking Cheetos to school is abuse, letting a 10-year-old walk to school is unsafe, being in an extracurricular that the kid doesn't love is manipulation and brainwashing, no autistic kid would ever be capable of staying home alone, drinking any amount of alcohol with children present is failure to supervise, and so forth. The whole system is set up so that decisions aren't based on science or research, but rather on what one worker thinks. The workers are generally young, extremely few are independently licensed, and most don't have kids.

So hey, I applaud this step in the right direction of letting people who want to work there know that, hey, you in fact can't just do what you want.

Is she unnecessarily putting people at risk of contracting a disease that has killed, as of today, 6 million people?

If they did that, they would have to do that for the other 100,000+ families they encounter each year. And they'd have to actually listen and assess objectively and not have this "contempt of cop" mentality.

Research has shown that nearly all families in contact with the system are reported for reasons of poverty, and nearly everything they consider neglect could be fixed with just money. There is massive racial bias at every level (reporting, screening, investigation, removal, termination). I would love it if someone would objectively look at the families involved. Not just the ones involved with this fundie wacko.

Reassignment to the Ukraine disinformation desk didn't last very long, I see.

He has to go into not so nice and nice neighborhoods and take away newborns and infants at 1 in the morning and move them to temporary foster homes to get them out of harms way from parents who might not have the Dr. Spock book on hand.

He has a good, good heart and the burnout at DCF is incredible. You can see it on his face.
He soldiers on and worked like a dog through Covid.

For this person to say "Jesus Doesn't Want Me to Get Vaxxed" means this person is off their rocker and shouldn't be interacting with DCF clients. She is sullying the work that these good people do.

Have fun in the applied horticultural mechanics industry this summer honey.

Next up: "My firmly held religious beliefs (which demand that I raise the risk of spreading COVID to immunocompromised children that I may encounter in my work) also require that I remove any and all children from (gay parents, unmarried parents, single male parents, trans parents, parents who get their kid gender affirming treatment, "non-Christian" parents ...).

Just wait.

This is the problem with DCF workers having religious beliefs that conflict with fulfilling the dictates of their employment. It becomes a convenient pretext for all sorts of stuff that they don't want to do that is part of their job, including getting vaccinated, including dealing with varying types of family structures that their God doesn't like.

No one can find one. Not even the usual suspects.

Should government favor religious institutions over private belief? Are practitioners of major religions more sincere in their faith? I think the opposite is the case. The bigger the church, the easier it is for its members to just mail it in. Tiny sects require more loyalty. And what of believers who belong to no known religion at all? Making up your own is a lot of work, and requires the deepest devotion.

It won’t get you respect, though. This is how we categorize people who believe absurd and impossible things: if there are many of them, we call them religious. If there are few, we call them crazy.

At least DCF has a ‘quick’ relationship with the kid. BPS is full of anti-vaxxers and that’s ok, according to the union and Mayor Wu.