A TEMPLATE EXEMPTION LETTER FOR VACCINATIONS

DATE

RE: Vaccine Status Request

Greetings _________ :

I have recently been asked to provide personal vaccination status information to our company. I am concerned that this information may provide precedent to explore any or all HIPAA protected medical information. I realize there is currently a great national concern over the health and welfare of our citizenry which includes _____________ employees; however, there is also a great concern over the limits and jurisdictions private companies may ignore with regards to employee’s privacy and freedoms.

As I am sure you are aware, on November 15, 2021, the Florida Legislature convened in special session to pass HB-1B (signed into law 11/18/2021), which imposes restrictive requirements on private Florida businesses seeking to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations. A Florida private business cannot impose a vaccine mandate without providing individual exemptions allowing an employee to “opt out” of such a mandate based on one of five reasons:

1. Medical Reasons

2. Religious Reasons

3. COVID-19 Immunity Evidence

4. Periodic Testing

5. Employer provided PPE

To effect such an opt-out, an employee need only provide the employer with a completed “exemption statement”. The law expressly states employers must allow an employee to opt out, not simply consider a request to opt out.

Employees who feel their employer has violated the new law may file a complaint with the Department of Legal Affairs. Violations for which complaints can be filed include:

1. Not being offered an exemption.

2. Being improperly denied an exemption.

3. Being terminated as a result of a vaccine mandate.

While the new law provides the employer opportunity to cure any violation, the Attorney General of the State of Florida must impose a monetary administrative fine should the employee have been terminated. The fine is set at $10,000 per employee violation for businesses less than 100 employees and at $50,000 per violation for employers with 100 or more employees.

To avoid unnecessary stress or misunderstanding, I thought it might be best to present my exemption based upon my sincere and genuinely held religious belief (#2).

I am a Christian and have established a clear record of sincerely applying the precepts of the Bible and the historic Christian Faith. This Christian conviction has not come in recent days but has been a part of my life since receiving Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I seek this exemption based on three key aspects of my faith:

1. The Authority of Scripture

Daniel 1:3-20, might be a good template for requesting an exemption. The Hebrew boys refused to ingest the king’s food and drink. Why? There was a high likelihood that the foods had been dedicated to the false gods of Babylon and consumption would have been both a violation of Scripture and conscience (Exodus 34:15; Numbers 25:2; Revelation 2:14, 20). While some meat and wine were certainly appropriate for Jewish consumption, some meat and wines were not. (This is analogous as to why some vaccinations may be received and others refused.) The key, however, was that they had determined to live out a consistent, Scriptural worldview no matter the repercussion.

Since I am a Christian, I am instructed by Scripture to carefully consider what it is I should allow in my body.

2. A Christian Theology of the Body

Who gets to control what is put into my body? Can I be forced to ingest something, no matter how benign the employer may think it to be, into my body? Or am I allowed to control my bodily jurisdiction without coercion from another?

God owns my body. My body is not my own (I Corinthians 6:19-20). I am a steward of this shell called, a body. It was arranged that way from the very beginning as the Lord defined the boundaries of what could and could not be ingested into the human body (See Genesis 3). The serpent enticed Eve, who in turn solicited Adam, to eat of a forbidden fruit. The fruit apparently, could be ingested and it would be seemingly innocuous; except for the fact that God had forbidden it. You see, God determines what is good and what is evil, not us. God determines what goes into the body and what does not. I cannot usurp His ownership.

In like manner, I cannot abuse my body. I cannot commit suicide under some convoluted sense of self-autonomy. Government does not own my body. My neighbor does not own my body. The only scriptural exception to another’s “ownership” is the relationship one enjoys with their spouse because a covenant was entered into for that shared relationship (I Corinthians 7:4).

The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. A temple is jurisdictionally off limits to governments and others. (I know abortion advocates use this to justify abortion. Again, they are twisting Scripture to suit their selfishness. You cannot murder a baby in the womb because that is their body.) It is a sin for a person to abuse or murder another person’s body. THE SANCTITY OF THE BODY IS CRITICAL! (I cannot ask another person to violate their body. “If you love me, you will get drunk with me, take drugs with me, let me do things to your body you are uncomfortable with.”) Under this logic, rape could be convolutedly justified under, “If you love me”.

You cannot defile a temple. Just like a church sanctuary has boundaries for usage, so does one’s body. It is sacred space. It is dedicated space. It is a place designed for God’s presence and authority. No one else can dictate what goes into it or how it may be used.

Acts of consecration of the body, as demonstrated by the three Hebrew boys in Daniel 1, are designed by God to be individually subjective. While there are certain things all of us may do as an act of obedience to the Scriptures with regards to our bodies, the Bible also teaches that each one of us are allowed “convictions”.

For example, the Bible never says that drinking wine is wrong, or that abstinence is required (exception is the Nazarite vow in Numbers 6); however, if I have a conviction about alcohol, you can’t force me to violate that conviction which God has impressed upon me. The Bible never says, “Thou shalt not smoke”. While it may not be wise to do such a thing, if I have conviction concerning this habit, you cannot make me smoke.

Jewish Law was in part based on certain food regulations (kosher). Not all foods were forbidden, but some foods were disqualified as God created a “special” people set apart for Him. You cannot force a Jewish person to eat pork ribs. In fact, if pork ribs were found to be the answer to COVID, you cannot simply force that cure into an orthodox Jew. You cannot say, “If you love your neighbor, you will eat ribs, shellfish, bacon, ham…” This is an affront to the act of consecration by a believer. And while Christians have a much more relaxed understanding of food requirements, that doesn’t disqualify the reality that some will have consecrated their lives unto the Lord in this regard.

If vaccine mandates are to be considered valid, then perhaps we should require multi-vitamin mandates, or Probiotic mandates, or water consumption mandates, or you simply name your food or drug of choice.

3. The Sanctity of the Conscience

The final step in considering the use and presentation of a religious exemption in the face of mandates is the sanctity of the conscience. The conscience is that inner voice or guide you at times “hear” telling you the rightness or wrongness of a decision or action. It is at times illustrated as the picture of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other shoulder. Your conscience resides in your spirit (note the uncapitalized “s”), which is the place where God’s Spirit communes and resides in you (Romans 8:16). So, when a person says, “Let your conscience be your guide”, that can be good advice IF His Spirit resides in your spirit. (If your conscience is broken, defiled, or weak, then we have problems.)

When Luther was mandated to recant his teachings at the Diet of Worms, he said, “I cannot and will not recant anything. To go against one’s conscience is neither right nor safe. My conscience is BOUND to the Word of God, I can do no other.” Your conscience is absolute hallowed space. It is sacrosanct. It is sacred space. You cannot be forced to violate your conscience as it is bound to the Scriptures and to the Holy Spirit who illuminates those Scriptures to be applied to your life. What this means in short is that others have no authority or right to leap over the jurisdictional boundaries of your conscience. Not the State, nor an employer, is lord of all.

The Hebrew writer (Hebrews 13:8) connects the conscience to ALL THINGS. There is no arena or subject of life that the conscience may not address. It may have to deal with convictions or priorities. It most certainly would have something to say in the area of health and medicine. How many people do we all know that have health, fitness, and medicine convictions? How many people make decisions daily as to what food will or will not go into their bodies? Reasons can vary, but foundationally it is linked to a conscientious standard of living. Untold thousands of decisions in people’s lives are made daily based purely on conscience. This is an essential and non-negotiable aspect of personal freedom.

For the Christian, it is also the place for the “divine alarm”.

Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

John 8:9 NKJV

The conscience is the place where God speaks HIS right and wrong, HIS good and evil. To submit the conscience to the sole dictates of the State is at best dangerous and at worst, idolatry.

Therefore, based upon my sincerely held and scripturally based belief, I respectfully request an exemption from the current vaccine requests and mandates linked to my employment.

Should you have any questions, you may contact me at the office at your discretion or need.

Sincerely,