The following article is a follow-up to this post from January 2023: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Religious Exemption.
My phone chirped while I was elbow-deep in a sink full of last night’s dishes signaling that I had received this text from a sweet friend, a text that we have fought long and hard for, a text that had begun to feel like it would never come:
“Our babies get to go to school!”
On Tuesday, April 18th, Judge Sul Ozerden handed down his decision that Mississippi must join her fellow red states in offering religious exemption from childhood vaccinations. Per Ozerden’s ruling, the Mississippi Department of Health now has until July 15th to put in place a process for Mississippians to go about obtaining these exemptions.
The decision followed a lawsuit “filed last year by several parents who say their religious beliefs have led them to keep their children unvaccinated and out of Mississippi schools,” according to Fox News.
To date, there are five vaccinations required in order for Mississippi children to attend public or private school: Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis (DTaP), Polio (IPV), Hepatitis B, Measles, Mumps Rubella (MMR), and Chickenpox (Varicella).
I had the privilege of having a really neat conversation with someone who has had a front-row seat to this victory – Mississippi State Senator, Chris McDaniel. The religious rights advocate said this regarding the decision: “Religious liberties are the most precious we have as Americans. The state has no business overcoming or getting in the way of the parent.”
McDaniel, a strong ally for medical freedom, actually appealed a prior ruling on the matter, a ruling dealt at the hand of current Mississippi Lieutenant Governor, Delbert Hosemann, which is a “really rare procedure” according to the former law clerk. While the appeal was ultimately blocked, it was a loud step in the direction of freedom.
So, why is this a big deal?
Well, for starters, as Americans, and especially today as Mississippians, we should rejoice anytime the Constitution wins.
As a nation, it seems we have forgotten that the government was instituted to govern at the consent of the governed. And as the governed, it is our freedom-born birthright to alter or abolish any form of government that seeks to jeopardize that freedom.
Our permission to institute a new government is etched into the pages of history, yellowed from weathering and standing the tests of time and trying; signed and solidified by our forefathers who risked everything, riding in on the bloodied back of religious emancipation.
We do not have to go quietly.
We do not have to pump our babies full of aborted fetal cells. For me, that would mean stepping away from a platform I have dedicated so many hours of my life to, a platform I believe with every fiber of my being the Lord placed me on, turning my back and saying, “I’m pro-life, but…”
And that is just not something I’m willing to do.
Furthermore, going back to the Constitution, I will not sit idly by, bleating my life away leaving behind an America where my children have to beg for their religious rights.
I know that I speak for so many mamas, daddies, grandparents, and other caretakers when I say that I am grateful to have conservative allies like Senator McDaniel and American Family Association fighting from the trenches for these precious freedoms.
So, today, we rejoice! We win!
Tomorrow, we get back to work.
