Religious Exemptions

In the early 1970s, the Christian Science church, Jehovah’s witnesses and other religious organizations pressured the federal government to have some sort of religious exemption policy.  Finally, in 1974 the federal government passed a policy that required all states to include religious exemptions in their civil and criminal codes in order to receive federal funding for child protection services.  The policy was rescinded in 1983, but the policies passed by the state governments during this time are still intact today.  Some of the policies include:

48 states have religious exemptions from immunizations.  

 Oregon and Pennsylvania have religious exemptions from bicycle helmets.

California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio have statutes excusing students with religious objections from studying about disease in school.

California allows public school teachers to refuse testing for tuberculosis on religious grounds.

Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have religious exemptions in their civil codes on child abuse or neglect, largely because of a federal government policy from 1974 to 1983 requiring states

Eighteen states have religious defenses to felony crimes against children

Twelve states have religious defenses to misdemeanors

Some of these policies seem so absurd to me.  One that I was particularly alarmed by was that public school teachers in California can refuse testing for tuberculosis.  What if these teachers have tuberculosis?  If they do, they are endangering the health of all the children they come in contact with!  Especially in a public school system, it seems that the state government should require all teachers to be free of tuberculosis before they are exposed to students. This is incredibly scary to think about.