Editor’s note: This commentary is by Dan DeWalt, an artisan and activist interested in democracy and the Constitution. He writes from South Newfane.
[T]he Legislature’s decision to consider ending parents’ rights to a philosophical exemption from immunizations raises some interesting questions about religion and Vermont.
House Speaker Shap Smith was quoted in VTDigger saying that while the religious and medical exemptions make sense, the philosophical exemption should not continue. Sen. Kevin Mullin has also declined to go after the religious exemption saying that politics is practicing the art of the possible, and it would not be possible to go after the religious exemption.
So what gives a personal moral judgment exercised under the influence of religion more legitimacy than a moral judgement exercised under the influence of a personal moral code derived from any number of possible influences other than religion?
What does religion have that a pondering mind doesn’t? Dogma, tradition, property and power come to mind.
Some would say that without religion there could be no guidance for moral judgement. But non-religious people make moral judgments every day. Vermont is the least religious state in the union. A recent Gallup poll showed that 56 percent of Vermonters identify as non-religious. But Vermont ranks high nationally in volunteering and civic engagement. Our incarceration rate is lower than most states. We pride ourselves in caring for our neighbors and our environment. No one could claim that we are incapable of making moral judgements. Our judgements simply lack the authoritative backing of a religious institution in their grounding.
But consider the history of human spiritual thought and actions. Muhammad’s conquering of peoples and converting them at the point of a sword, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the current depredations of ISIS and al Shabab; all came out of the organized, institutional side of a religion. When religions amass power, property and wealth these are just some of the ways they cement their power and extend their influence.
This whole mess is simply a case of expediency. Smith, Mullin and others are willing to usurp the rights of conscientious, moral Vermonters simply because they can, not because of any difference in the quality of the thinking between philosophical and religious objectors.
Too often it is only when you step away from the center of church authority, out in the individual parishes, mosques, synagogues or churches, where members of a local religious community gather to share their spiritual lives without worrying about their church’s institutional power structure, that you get to see the beauty and value of interactions among people trying to live moral lives together.
Speaker Smith explains that unlike the philosophical exemption, if someone claims exemption on religious grounds, it would be hard to argue against their First Amendment rights of religious freedom.
So, a group gathered in a particular church could object to immunizing their children and be given the right to an exemption. But if that same group gathered under some other auspices and came to the same conclusion, having weighed and balanced their collective grounding of moral influences to do so, they would have no right to an objection.
The philosophical claim has no constitutional basis simply because the Founding Fathers failed to imagine that the freedom to philosophize would come under attack and so gave it no protection. It’s ironic that while Mitt Romney could claim an exemption if he so chose, Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t have the same right, because his belief system, while grounded in his understanding of the teachings of Jesus, was nonetheless “philosophical” as he wasn’t a card-carrying religionist.
This whole mess is simply a case of expediency. Smith, Mullin and others are willing to usurp the rights of conscientious, moral Vermonters simply because they can, not because of any difference in the quality of the thinking between philosophical and religious objectors.
Perhaps the religious elephant in the room is our society’s fervent belief that absolute truths can only be found in “science”; if it can’t be proved empirically, it must not be valid. This of course requires large helpings of forgetfulness as we think of the various scientifically approved theories, methods and products that have come down to us through the ages: a flat earth, leeches to bleed sickness from patients, atomic power too cheap to meter, more doctors smoking Camels than any other brand, the Dalkon shield, fosomax and thalidomide to name a few. While the pro-vaccination advocates are certain of their science, other minds with a sense of history are not so quick to accept the absolute unequivocal nature of the current findings.
Rather than arbitrarily giving religionists a right that others don’t have, we would be better served if the state either recognized non-religion as the official state belief and gave everyone equal rights as we have at the moment, or, the Legislature should figure out how to work around the First Amendment and make its public health demands apply to everyone equally.
