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State fires corrections official who was approving religious exemptions for vaccinations for prison guards

Live Boston reports, adds the move has led to some of the corrections officers having their waivers rescinded.


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never works.

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The state could save itself the trouble of all the double-checking and just bar any religious exemption. They're all scams anyway.

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Religion has only been a scam for thousands of years. Let’s just give them a couple thousand more to turn things around!

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No religion supports refusing vaccines. Just get rid of this provision in the law.

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… a new religion that doesn’t allow adherents to be vaccinated. In addition, existing religions are all subject to fluid interpretations of their sacred texts. So there are ways to support any claim that a certain religion forbids vaccination. Just as you can find pro abortion choice and anti choice interpretations of the Christian bible.

It doesn’t matter whether someone’s religion is anti vax or not. What matters is that religion, unlike a medical condition, is a matter of personal choice. If you chose your anti vax religion over your job and your civic duty, the consequence is that you deserve to lose your job. Simple as that.

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If your job expects you to turn against your sincerely held religious beliefs, then surely that is not the job for you.

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There's no need to disrespect the sincerity of someone's beliefs, or the beliefs themselves, to conclude that they are not compatible with certain responsibilities. If your beliefs have led you to make a vow of silence, those beliefs should be respected, but you cannot expect to hold a job answering telephones.

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How do they determine who gets one?

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Put them in a cave and if they come out three days later, they're a Messiah.

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Nail them to a doorframe and if they're still there three days later, they're a mezuzah.

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That gets my vote

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This is outrageous and probably violates their contracts. Prepare for a legal battle.

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Outrageous how and why? Do tell.

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Thanks for weighing in, Counselor!

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“Said simply, Governor Baker’s administration can not make it up as they go without being challenged by this union, not when your religious and medical beliefs, your professional careers and your ability to provide for your families hangs in the balance,” Scafidi wrote. “The MCOFU Executive Board will continue to hold this administration accountable for the unimaginable treatment you now have to endure, or we will go down swinging in the process.”

Unimaginable treatment, this *checks notes* requirement that you get a vaccine to protect you from covid-19.

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your religious and medical beliefs

Well that's an interesting word choice, isn't it? Medicine is not a matter of "belief", it is based on empirical evidence, all of which points to all but an infinitesimal percentage of the population being vaccinated as the best course for their own health, never mind the common good. As for your "religious beliefs...hanging in the balance", even making the extremely generous allowance that these are sincerely held religious beliefs and not a cynical use of religion as a fig leaf to obtain a special privilege...no religion has these beliefs. Ever since people started waving the "but mah religious beliefs!" flag over vaccination, as far as I'm aware, not one religion has come forward to state its opposition to vaccination -- and those who would most likely do so have explicitly stated that they do not object to vaccination. Sorry, if you want to claim an exemption, the burden of proof is on you, to prove that you have a medical condition that prevents vaccination, and to establish the sincerity of your "sincerely held" beliefs AND the position of your religion as being against vaccination. And guess what, you still lose your job, because your "belief" does not protect you and others.

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