Visitors sit on pews in the Great Upper Church at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the campus of Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Religious employers assert ‘church autonomy’ in lawsuits OSHA mandate said to force institutions to violate beliefs Christian schools, churches, and seminaries contend OSHA’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate clashes with their constitutionally protected religious freedom, setting up a legal contest that pits the power of the federal government to act in a public health crisis against sectarian rights. Religious institutions have filed at least four lawsuits seeking to bar enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency standard requiring U.S. employers with 100 or more workers to ensure that all members of their workforce are fully vaccinated or tested at least weekly, starting Jan. 4. The institutions maintain the federal mandate, which contained no faith-based carve-out, forces religious employers to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. The cases are pending at the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and elsewhere. “The biggest frustration our clients have is that they themselves can’t be the ones to violate their employees’ deeply held religious beliefs,” said Jeremy Dys , special counsel […]
