The Elements of Religious Accommodation Requests

God Told Me

Last January, I listened to a presentation by a lawyer representing Navy SEALs seeking religious exemption from the COVID vaccine requirement. I asked him to speak about the reasons people gave for seeking the accommodation. If I heard him correctly, one of the reasons that individuals gave for seeking the exemption was “God told me to.” 

I don’t see how you could possibly build a workable system of religious accommodation on such a foundation.

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In October (10/17/23), a federal court in Maryland issued a ruling that I think agrees with me. 

In Foshee vs. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, the court dismissed a claim by individuals seeking religious exemption from the vaccine requirement. 

In dismissing the case, the court wrote:

Foshee’s position, that God gave him a conscience that tells him what to do, similarly amounts to a “blanket privilege. The same conscience-based justification could be used to evade any job requirement that Foshee disagreed with. … That reasoning is not subject to any principled limitation in its scope. Their beliefs thus confer the type of unverifiable “blanket privilege” that courts cannot permit to be couched as religious in nature.

(H/T to Howard Friedman’s Religion Clause blog). 

God told me. I prayed about it. The Holy Spirit guided me. Neither one-off personal revelations nor religiously formed opinions can reasonably serve as the foundation for government mandated accommodations. They are blank checks for personal preferences. Don’t want to show up for PT this Monday? God told you to take the day off.

Religious Nature and Importance 

What, in my opinion, ought the standard to be? It seems to me that requests for religious accommodation ought to have a number of elements that establish the religious nature and importance of the request. Please note in advance that these standards are not in place, either in law or regulation. They are my idea of what makes sense. 

First, an applicant should be able to describe the belief that requires accommodation in propositional terms. What is the religious principle at stake? The government need not – indeed, cannot – agree with the proposition, but it needs to understand what it is being asked to accommodate. Every accommodation request needs boundaries, and without propositional content, there are none.

It should be obvious, but the principle must be religious in nature in order to receive a religious accommodation. 

The government accommodates individuals, not religions, so it is quite possible that individuals can request accommodations that doesn’t fit neatly with a religious group identity, but such requests definitely require explanation. “I am a Muslim and I don’t eat pork” doesn’t require much more information. “I am a Methodist and I don’t eat pork” does. 

The purportedly factual component of the request should actually be factual. “I need to be excused from a vaccine requirement because the government is secretly using it to inject us with mind-control nanobots” is not a request that can be considered. 

Moreover, the proposition needs to have internal coherence. That is, it needs to have some logical consistency and be comprehensible. Non-sequiturs don’t provide a solid foundation for religious accommodation. Neither do selective requests. For example, why do you need an exemption from this particular vaccine when you don’t object to vaccination more generally? 

The requester needs to be able to explain the religious significance of the requested accommodation. It is indeed problematic for the government to judge the personal religious significance of various religious practices, but I don’t see a way around this requirement. In my own life, some religious practices are more central than others. 

Along that same line, applicants should be able to describe how they apply the principle within their own lives. This speaks both to the issue of sincerity and the issue of centrality. How does this principle affect their conduct outside of the context of military service? If the applicant is not conscientiously applying the principle outside of the military context – if it is not important enough practice consistently – why should the government be burdened with accommodation? 

Finally, if the belief has existed for some time and you have never previously requested an accommodation, you will need to explain how your beliefs have evolved, and why you are just now requesting the accommodation or putting your belief into practice. Conveniently timed requests are naturally suspect. 

This a part 3 of a series on Religious Accommodation in military services. 

  1. The Evolution of Army Policy on Religious Accommodation
  2. The Meaning of Substantial Burden for Religious Accommodation
  3. The Elements of Religious Accommodation Requests
  4. The Chaplain’s Role in Requests for Religious Accommodation

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