Family's religion deemed not "sincere enough" to allow religious exemption for vaccinations

Regardless of what you personally think about vaccinations, a New York family has been denied their letter of religious exemption, stating that it was not "sincere enough" to allow the children to be exempt from vaccines. This is a sign of things to come for homeschoolers, and people need to realize that the main issue here isn't even about vaccinations or even homeschooling, but it's about parental rights!

The government came in 150 years ago and said ALL children have to go to school. Then they came in later (and every few years since then) and said, OK, we're increasing the number of hours to X per day. Then they said, since we have X number of children in school and there are so mnay communicable diseases that children are catching, now you can't come to school unless you can prove that you've had shots (and an increasing X number of shots every few years!) to prevent those diseases. Some parents said NO, we're not going to do that. Fortunately, there were some waivers given, in the name of religion. During the past year, various courts across the country have made it clear that if you put your child in public school, this means that you submit your child to the teachings of the public school system WHETHER YOU AGREE WITH WHAT THEY ARE TEACHING OR NOT (homosexuality, abortion, evolution, etc.). In other words, since the court system has made it clear to the public school system that they own children in the school system, the schools are now seeing how far they can take that ownership. I believe they will push this as far as they can. They will try court case after court case until they have set enough precidents to show that they should actually be teaching and training all the nation's children. Once they do that, they will have the socialist state in place that is the goal. Then they will come after our children. If you think this is paranoia - take a look at Germany and a few other countries that do not allow homeschooling. Why? Because the parents might teach the children contrary to what the state wants the children to learn.

So back to this case in New York... The attorney said that the family's religious beliefs weren't sincere enough for the family to have a "religious waiver" to avoid vaccinations. Actually, I think this is pretty cool! Ask yourself this question. Are your beliefs evident enough to others ... Is your Christianity evident enough to others ... Do you live a life full of Christ to the point that others would KNOW that your religious beliefs are sincere?

The point of all this is that things are happening quickly and people need to be aware that all of this is connected. First off, it should be the parents' decision about whether or not the child should be vaccinated. But that's not the point at all. I think we're at a point where there is a movement by many people to get rid of religion altogether. Even though this episode deals with public education, traditionally when these things affect public education, things trickle over into homeschooling (like standardized testing) because they want to make sure it's "fair," etc. Religion has been removed from government schools. The "powers that be" are trying to remove any influence of religion, including the ability of parents to use religious exemptions. Eventually I believe this will happen. If it does, this will also affect states that allow homeschooling for reasons of religious objection to government education. There have already been several cases about this in the past few years. It IS already happening and thus far we are barely holding on, but we are losing ground quickly. I think with the new administration, etc. the laws are likely to change.

If you want to read the article about this particular family, you can read the full story at One News Now here:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=415952

Sonya Haskins
www.thehomeschooladvocate.com