The battle over covid-19 vaccine mandates has pulled religion into the spotlight as experts say more people than ever claim vaccines conflict with their religious beliefs, an assertion employers must try to evaluate amid a deep vaccination divide.

Shane Chesher, 34, of Harrison’s Natrona neighborhood, was among a number of Allegheny County employees fired this week after a deadline for county employees to submit proof of vaccination or receive a qualified exemption passed.

More than 94% of employees had submitted their paperwork as of Thursday morning, county officials said, though they could not say how many employees were terminated for not meeting the deadline.

Chesher said he received an email Thursday informing him that he had been fired and was no longer employed by Allegheny County. He said the local laborers’ union is fighting his termination.

He said he saw the writing on the wall when his religious exemption was denied.

“I was kind of starting to prepare myself to get terminated because I knew I wasn’t going to give in to a bully that’s trying to bully me to do something I didn’t want to do,” Chesher said.

He said his objection to the vaccine mandate is based in his faith.

“I believe that God gives us sovereignty over our body and nobody else. That was one of my main things,” he said. “I believe — I don’t believe, I know — that God gave us our rights, and our rights are supposed to be protected, and they’re being trampled on.”

He added: “Abortion is part of the process (to create vaccines), and that’s a violation of my conscience and religious beliefs as well.”

Some vaccines do have a remote connection to fetal cells. The cells, called fibroblast cells, are used to grow vaccine viruses. The cells originally came from the elective terminations of two pregnancies in the early 1960s, according to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The original fetal cells have been grown in laboratories ever since. That means the cells used to develop today’s vaccines — which include vaccines against chickenpox, rubella, hepatitis A and rabies — come from the same initial cells obtained in the 1960s.

The same cell lines were used to test common over-the-counter drugs like acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin, according to a detailed National Geographic breakdown of the vaccines’ connection to fetal cells.

Chesher said he’d worked most recently for the parks department in Harrison Hills Park near his home.

“I didn’t want to lose my job, but I wanted to stand up for what I believe was right,” said Chesher, who has a wife and two daughters. “I’m putting my faith in God and not a paycheck or a job,” he said.

Chesher said he wasn’t expecting his story to get the attention it has, and though reaction has been mixed, he said he’s received “more support than hate.”

“For the people that are against me, I’m fighting for them, too, because freedom’s for everyone,” he said. “For those standing with me, I hope I can give them the courage to stand up for themselves, too.”

A tricky, gray area

The idea of religious exemptions has become a tricky, gray area as covid-19 surges, vaccine mandates take effect and the gulf widens between science advocates and those who decline vaccination.

The deep division among political lines is not historically where applications for religious exemptions have fallen, said Kira Ganga Kieffer, a doctoral candidate at Boston University who is writing a book about vaccine skepticism.

“What I’m seeing and what we’re experiencing nationally is the politicization of this vaccine,” she said. “Those who are steadfastly wishing to abstain from getting the vaccine are asserting an identity, and it seems to me that that’s largely a religious and political identity.”

The current political climate just muddies the waters even more, said Northeastern University law professor Wendy Parmet. She said that while religious exemptions are not a new concept, two things have changed in recent years.

“Vaccine resistance is being stirred through misinformation on social media, and it’s connected with political polarization in ways that are really quite amplified more than we’ve seen before.”

People’s religious beliefs are intertwined with world views, secular beliefs, political beliefs and fears, Parmet said.

“We have more people who are coming to their religious exceptions through paths of political anger and misinformation,” she said. “Once upon a time, what would have been a small exemption now threatens to become a much bigger (issue).”

Kieffer said there has never before been such a large-scale push for religious exemptions, which have generally been for school-age children whose parents wanted to opt out of childhood vaccinations.

“Religious exemptions have always existed,” she said, “but they were very individualized and not kind of en masse in the way that they are trying to be used right now.”

In studying measles outbreaks, Kieffer said they could be traced to areas with a range of political and religious views: Data show outbreaks in conservative areas, religiously insular areas, progressive areas and others.

Few religious doctrines explicitly ban vaccination, according to a review of the most common religions by Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The report notes that while most religions have no prohibitions on vaccinations, there are some that “have considerations, concerns or restrictions regarding vaccination in general, particular reasons for vaccination, or specific vaccine ingredients.”

Among Christian faiths, a majority of denominations have no theological objection to vaccines, according to the university. They include Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Amish, Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Quaker, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Seventh-Day Adventist, Unitarian-Universalist and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Among other religions whose doctrines raise no objections to vaccination are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Scientology.

The Vanderbilt review found there are just a handful of faiths in which issues are raised with vaccinations: Dutch Reformed congregations and faith healing denominations like Faith Tabernacle, Church of the First Born, Faith Assembly, Endtime Ministries and Church of Christ, Scientist.

Kieffer said the issue at hand today goes beyond pronouncements within scripture or by faith leaders, many of whom have spoken out against carte blanche religious exemptions. The basis for granting or denying a request for an exemption relies on whether vaccination goes against one’s “sincerely held” religious beliefs.

“We live in an extremely individualized country, and so people have individual beliefs or ideas that don’t necessarily come directly from a large denomination or the Catholic Church or their synagogue or something like that,” she said. “But they can still identify those as religious beliefs whether they’re religious or spiritual or not.”

Kieffer said she’s not casting doubt on the sincerity of anyone’s beliefs, but “when you talk about beliefs, it could be anything.”

Parmet agreed.

“One person can sincerely believe that a vaccine violates their religious beliefs based on their own personal religious understanding, their own faith, a vision that came to them in the middle of the night — whatever,” she said.

Because religious freedoms allow for beliefs that might not be strictly orthodox, Parmet said, it makes policing against abuse of such exemptions difficult.

“It makes it very hard to police the boundaries between people who are saying, ‘I have a religious exemption’ and people who are actually upset about vaccines because they’ve received misinformation that tells them the vaccines are going to lead to fertility problems,” she said.

She called it a catch-22 for employers.

“If they grant exemptions too liberally — basically grant them whenever requested — they’ve undone the mandate,” she said. “If they police them strictly and really try to question sincerity, they face litigation risks.”

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