Believe it or not, America’s commitment to the First Amendment and religious liberty wasn’t dreamed up by the Religious Right.

However, at some point — mainly during press coverage of clashes between the Sexual Revolution and traditional forms of religion — religious liberty turned into “religious liberty” or even “so called ‘religious liberty’ ” and other language to that effect. America has come a long way since that 97-3 U.S. Senate vote to approve the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

Now we are seeing waves of valid news coverage of religious liberty disputes linked to people seeking exemptions from mandates requiring COVID-19 vaccines. During this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) I suggested that it would help for journalists to dig into the details of how courts have handled earlier religious liberty cases.

Consider this recent Washington Post headline, involving a White evangelical leader in Oklahoma: “This pastor will sign a religious exemption for vaccines if you donate to his church.” Here’s the overture:

A pastor is encouraging people to donate to his Tulsa church so they can become an online member and get his signature on a religious exemption from  coronavirus vaccine mandates. The pastor, Jackson Lahmeyer, is a 29-year-old small-business owner running in the Republican primary challenge to Sen. James Lankford in 2022.

Lahmeyer, who leads Sheridan Church with his wife, Kendra, said Tuesday that in the past two days, about 30,000 people have downloaded the religious exemption form he created.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “My phone and my emails have blown up.”

This minister isn’t alone in thinking this way. Here is a New York Daily News story about an African-American Pentecostal leader: “A Brooklyn preacher’s blessing is a pox upon his flock.”

The Rev. Kevin McCall is vowing to give COVID inoculation exemptions to members of his church trying to avoid vaccine mandates — and is even offering the letters as an enticement so people will join.

McCall told the Daily News on Friday that about 60% of his congregation at the Anointed by God Ministry have requested exemptions from the life-saving shots — and that others from outside his church are coming in droves for the exemption benediction. … He said that there’s no fee to get the letter, but encouraged donations.

This raises a question: Will these letters do the trick when challenged in courts? What do church-state scholars — on left and right — say about that?

Note that these pastors seem to be saying that, for a fee or a voluntary donation, they can deliver a letter offering a valid exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Is that claim true?

Now, pause for a moment and reflect on patterns seen in earlier religious-liberty disputes (the kind of stuff I studied long ago when doing an M.A. in church-state studies at Baylor University). You may recall that courts tend to avoid issues of religious doctrines and beliefs, unless the disputes center on (a) fraud, (b) financial profits or (c) clear threats to life and health.

We will come back to (c) in a moment. My question is whether fraud might be involved in a financial transaction of this kind. Does a signed check or a credit-card swipe demonstrate commitment to a specific set of religious beliefs?

That’s one lens through which to examine some of these cases. The second issue that host Todd Wilken and I discussed during the podcast can be seen in a pretty solid New York Times story with this headline: “Vaccine Resisters Seek Religious Exemptions. But What Counts as Religious?”

That’s a valid question and it’s one that has been asked in many earlier cases.

Jumping down in this report, here is a crucial chunk of material related to that question:

Exemption requests are testing the boundaries of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees who object to work requirements based on religious beliefs that are “sincerely held.”

To the benefit of objectors … the provision defines “religion” broadly. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has specified that religious objections do not have to be recognized by an organized religion and can be beliefs that are new, uncommon or “seem illogical or unreasonable to others.”

They cannot, however, be based only on social or political beliefs. That means employers must try to distinguish between primarily political objections from people who may happen to be religious, and objections that are actually religious at their core.

For many skeptics, resistance tends to be based not on formal teachings from an established faith leader, but an ad hoc blend of online conspiracies and misinformation, conservative media and conversations with like-minded friends and family members.

How have courts, in the past, tried to draw lines between “sincerely held” religious beliefs and those that may have been created on the spot, out of religious or political “whole cloth”?

It really helps believers, when making these claims, to have some history on their side.

There is no question, for example, that Catholic prisoners should be able to say final confessions and receive last rights before executions. This ancient pastoral-care principle would then be extended to Muslims, Jews, Protestants, etc. This concept is in the news right now, in Texas.

What about Christian business people — flower-shop owners or artistic bakers, perhaps— who are fighting government attempts to force them to create symbolic statements that violate centuries of doctrine on marriage and sexuality? The U.S. Supreme Court may not be finished with those cases.

At this point, the the vast majority of established religious groups are backing the COVID-19 vaccines, but there are still debates about some of the fine details (such as the origins of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine). It doesn’t appear, for example, that Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to have objections to vaccines).

Plus, we are clearly dealing with a “clear threat to life and health” situation. Courts will almost certainly have to look closely at religious-liberty claims linked to COVID-19 vaccines.

With that in mind, consider this long chunk of the Times report:

U.S. businesses have spent the past 18 months dealing with a series of logistically and politically contentious challenges raised by the pandemic, including shutting down workplaces, requiring masks and reopening, combined with widespread labor shortages. The new battle over vaccine exemptions is especially fraught, pitting religious liberty concerns against the priority of maintaining a safe environment.

“How much can we ask? How far can we push? Do we have to accommodate this? Those are the questions employers are trying to figure out,” said Barbara Holland, an adviser at the Society for Human Resource Management. And: “How do I tease out who’s not telling the truth?”

Interest in religious exemptions is clearly rising. Mat Staver, the founder and chair of Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian legal organization, said his group had received more than 20,000 queries on religious exemptions in recent weeks. 

Liberty Counsel filed suit … against officials in New York over the state’s attempts to deny religious exemptions from its vaccination mandate for health care workers. “The consequences of these forced edicts are enormous,” Mr. Staver said, citing the possibility of labor shortages if health care workers quit or are fired en masse.

In New York City, where vaccines are required for public school teachers, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would recognize “narrow and specific grounds for religious exemption.”

Well now: “How do I tease out who’s not telling the truth?” And New York City will recognize “narrow and specific grounds for religious exemption.”

Courts have already been there and tried to do that. There are quotable experts at church-state organizations — again, on the left and right — who can help reporters explore the earlier cases.

Journalists need to take the scare quotes off “religious liberty” and get serious. It’s time to look at previous religious-liberty cases — especially those involving health issues — and report some of the facts and trends.

Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.

FIRST IMAGE: Graphic posted with “scare quotes” post at Infobloom.com