Wed Apr 26, 2023 – 10:22 am EDT
GULFPORT, Mississippi (LifeSiteNews) — Mississippi officials must allow students to obtain religious exemptions from vaccine mandates, a federal judge ruled recently.
The southern state had remained one of only two red states that did not offer religious exemptions from school shot mandates. The other is West Virginia.
District Judge Halil “Sul” Ozerden ruled on April 18 that the state’s health officer and a handful of local school district officials were “enjoined from enforcing Mississippi’s school compulsory vaccination law…unless they provide an option for requesting a religious exemption from the law’s requirements.” Plaintiffs were represented by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), a medical freedom advocacy group.
State Health Officer Daniel Edney has until July 15, according to the ruling, to develop a statewide exemption process for the school shot mandates. “Thereafter, while the injunction remains in effect, a person may seek a religious exemption from the compulsory vaccine law by requesting such exemption pursuant to the process developed by the Mississippi State Department of Health.”
While the plaintiffs were parents, state officials themselves even argued there were exemptions from the mandates, even if those were not explicitly in the
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