[burner990]

My employer wouldn't let me go to the office or even any offsites or outdoor actives (i.e. a picnic) until very recently. (Despite my approved religious exemption and "requiring" all employees to work in the office).

If that isn't coercion to take an experimental vaccine i don't know what is.

[lazyasciiart]

Seems reasonable to me. They want everyone to be at the office and vaccinated, but they’re not allowed to fire you because “religion”, so they made special accommodations to let you continue working without making all of their other employees have to be around you. You appear to be mad that your “exemption” wasn’t enough to make them pretend you were vaccinated?

[burner990]

But no accommodation to go to the company (outdoor) events and hear talks from the executives?

> You appear to be mad that your “exemption” wasn’t enough to make them pretend you were vaccinated?

I had blood test proof of antibodies but its just about "feel goods".

And they didn't require boosters, just the first 2 doses from over a year ago, so yes its non-sensical and purely political (not based on science).

[threeseed]

a) I wouldn't class it as experimental when hundreds of millions of people have taken it.

b) It sounds like your employer did the right thing to balance your rights versus those of the people you work with.

[burner990]

> I wouldn't class it as experimental when hundreds of millions of people have taken it.

that just means we're experimenting on hundreds of millions in real time. That was the whole point of the "emergency use".

> your rights versus those of the people you work with

no, employees don't have a legal "right" to work in a fully vaccinated office. That would imply that even if an employer wanted to give someone an exemption, then any employee could veto it.

[addingadimensio]

If an experiment is big enough it becomes a statistic

[curiousgal]

> approved religious exemption

The wording is a telltale sign that the exemption is pure BS.

[burner990]

That's the legal wording from EEOC[1]. I'll chalk up your religious prejudice to ignorance.

[1]: https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-covid-1...

[TheCrownedFox]

You might not like that the exemption exists, but it's legal in the USA. Would you rather that religious beliefs were not respected by the government?

[oneoff786]

I would prefer the government was completely indifferent to religious beliefs. Because any belief can be construed as religious if you’re willing to take the position that religion is stupid and you don’t care about optics.

So yeah, I would prefer beliefs not garner you special privileges

[TheCrownedFox]

What special privileges are being garnered? The topsy-turvy world of the religious person existing as the exception rather than the rule is quite odd to me. But regardless, in the USA the religious exemption policy is incredibly diverse and welcoming, you are correct on that. You do not even need to communicate with your God in expressible ways to other people. What should be the limit on someone's divine communication and the restrictions upon the government they live under?

[oneoff786]

> What special privileges are being garnered?

The exemption

> What should be the limit on someone's divine communication and the restrictions upon the government they live under?

None. But your definition of divine communication should not override otherwise unrelated rules.

[TheCrownedFox]

I would posit that the special privilege has been given to the non-religious, in that they have been able to openly discriminate against religious people in violation of existing laws.

I would suggest looking into the EEOC regulations mentioned by someone else in this thread and Title VII of the 1964 civil rights act.

[Bud]

I'd prefer that we not all pretend that 2000-year-old religions somehow magically dictated that vaccines were bad. They obviously didn't. These obviously are not legitimate "religious" beliefs. Religion is transparently being used as a cloak for political beliefs fueled by misinformation.

Taking covid-related "religious" beliefs seriously only undercuts societal respect for actual religious belief.

[TheCrownedFox]

In regards to how religious beliefs are treated in the USA, it's not restricted to the major religions of the world. Someone's communication to their God does not require a many thousand year lineage, it doesn't even need to be able to be communicated in a comprehensible language to others.

It may be that some people aren't professing sincerely held religious beliefs, but if they say they do then as the law is written then it must be respected by their employer. The employer is able to ask some clarifying questions about the religious belief and they only have to provide what would be considered a reasonable accommodation.

The law can certainly be changed but besides the difficulty of the process the implications of allowing the government to gain additional control over what is an acceptable religion sounds like a great way to lead to additional religious pogroms.

[burner990]

> I'd prefer that we not all pretend that 2000-year-old religions somehow magically dictated that vaccines were bad

You don't understand any of the religious arguments if you think its just because it's a vaccine. It could be because fetal tissue was used in manufacturing these vaccines (they were). There are many other such examples.

[Bud]

This is misleading. Some vaccines do use two fetal cell lines in their development or testing. NOT in their "manufacturing". These cell lines were derived from two elective abortions in the 1960s and 1970s. The same cell lines have been used now for over 50 years for various other medical purposes.

Saying "fetal tissue" and "manufacturing" paints rather a different picture.

Also, to be more specific, when we speak of covid vaccines, we're largely talking about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Those specific vaccines did NOT use fetal cell lines in their manufacturing. So now you've gone from being misleading to being flat out wrong.

I understand the pseudo-religious arguments quite well, actually. To that point:

"The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were found to be ethically uncontroversial by the pro-life policy organization the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Further, the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, a committee within the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, has stated: "neither Pfizer nor Moderna used an abortion-derived cell line in the development or production of the vaccine. However, such a cell line was used to test the efficacy of both vaccines. Thus, while neither vaccine is completely free from any use of abortion-derived cell lines, in these two cases the use is very remote from the initial evil of the abortion...one may receive any of the clinically recommended vaccines in good conscience with the assurance that reception of such vaccines does not involve immoral cooperation in abortion."

https://www.health.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/COVID%20...