The Supreme Court stunningly rejected an emergency appeal from Maine healthcare workers based on their constitutionally protected religious beliefs to block a COVID vaccine mandate that went into effect on Friday.
Maine requires that healthcare workers all be vaccinated against a long list of diseases including COVID-19. According to the New York Times, in 2019 a law was passed that disallowed religious exemptions that would have circumvented the requirement.
The ruling was split 6 to 3 with Chief Justice John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh voting with liberal justices against religious exemptions. Roberts and the three liberal justices did not author an opinion on the ruling. However, Coney Barrett was joined by Kavanaugh in noting that the ruling to not grant injunctive relief on the vaccine mandate was at least partially due to the request coming via the “emergency docket” also known as the “shadow docket.”
