Local student sues health department over vaccines

I'm adamant that if there's even a hint that vaccinations pose any danger to health, it must be confronted and remedied.

But my view is based on science - not religion. I'm just as unwavering in my view that religious exemptions from vaccines should be abolished. This story shows why. These exemptions endanger the general public.

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart/Assumption Academy is a right-wing Catholic school in Walton that allows religious exemptions for the chickenpox vaccine. This school is now experiencing a chickenpox epidemic that has sidelined 32 students.

Because of this outbreak, the Northern Kentucky Health Department has ordered any unvaccinated student at this school to stay home for 21 days. This order also bars them from school sports.

Now a high school senior who plays basketball for this school is suing the health department over this directive, claiming a vaccination violates his Catholic beliefs. "For the health department to say we have to get vaccines in order to go to school, that's infringing upon my First Amendment right," he groaned.

The judge ought to laugh this case right out of the courtroom. No real legal theory allows one to use a religious exemption to directly endanger the public. But I'm not confident that the suit will be tossed, because Kentucky courts have a history of making up special religious rights that are not constitutionally protected - even allowing people to force their religious beliefs on others.