Judging Freedom - Supreme Court declines religious challenge to N.Y. vaccine mandate

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch said the court should have blocked enforcement of the mandate. Judge Napolitano gives his take. #SCOTUS #VaccineMandate #NewYorkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Good morning, my friends. Judge Andrew Napolitano here on Judging Freedom, my podcast where from time to time I interview friends and adversaries, and from time to time I pop up to talk about what's on my mind. What's on my mind this morning is a decision of the Supreme Court that came out last night. It is now Tuesday morning, December 14. Last night on December 13, the Supreme Court issued a terrible ruling involving your right to the free exercise of religion. A couple of weeks ago, Kathy Hochul, the governor of the state of New York, who succeeded Andrew Cuomo when he resigned last summer, issued an edict requiring all health care workers in the state. Health care workers that work for the state and health care workers that don't work for the state to be vaccinated. She did this on her own. It's an edict. It's an order from the governor. It is not legislation enacted by the legislature. Under our system of government, where the legislature writes the laws, the executive branch enforces the laws, and the judicial branch interprets the laws, only the legislature can write laws governing human behavior and laws that have police to enforce them and punishments when they are violated.

The governor of New York, the governor of any state in the union, is simply without authority to do this. Well, several health care workers filed a challenge, not on the grounds that Governor Hochul did not have the authority to do this, but on the grounds that have violated their religious freedom. Some were Catholic who said they believe that some of the vaccines come from fluid taken from aborted fetuses, and they didn't want to have anything to do with this abortion killing. Some were other religious groups that firmly believe that the government cannot force you to inject anything into your body. And some were religious groups simply belong to a religion that doesn't believe in vaccines or medicine. We're not here to evaluate or judge people's religion. They have these sincerely held beliefs. And the framers of the Constitution understood and recognized this.

Here's a question for you. What's the first religion protected? Excuse me. What's the first freedom protected under the First Amendment? Most people would say freedom of speech. It's not. It's freedom of religion. This was very important to the framers that you have freedom of religion, which means the free exercise of religion cannot be interfered with by the state.

The state cannot compel you to honor or respect the state's religion. All of these are arguments that should have resonated with the federal courts. They didn't. The federal district court judge granted the relief. The Circuit Court of Appeals in lower Manhattan, a panel of three judges, denied the relief sought, and last night the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, meaning if you are a health care worker in the state of New York, privately or publicly employed, it doesn't matter. And you don't show proof of vaccination.

You can lose your job. You can even lose your pension. You can even lose your health care benefits because the governor of New York and the Supreme Court in this instance, shockingly, doesn't give a damn about the free exercise of religion. Justice, I admire so much Justice Neil Gorsuch and another justice who's a longtime college buddy of mine, Justice Samuel Alito, along with Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented. Justice Gorsuch wrote, our Constitution is intended to prevail over the passions of the moment, and the inalienable rights recorded in its text are not matters to be submitted to a vote. They depend on the outcome of no elections. Stated differently, your right to the free exercise of your religion, to say to the government,

I'm not going to do this because you're forcing me to violate my religion. Your right to do that is inalienable and cannot be taken away from you. And yet, if you live in New York, the governor of New York just took it away and the Supreme Court let her do it. This is a dark day for freedom of religion in America, and it's time we did something about it. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.