Offered, FWIW.

Whether you choose to "vaccinate" or not, or choose to accept additional risk in the from of a booster as the pandemic fades, this is your choice, and your choice alone.

That is what is at stake here with these "mandates", your most fundamental and precious claim to your physical essence itself. 

You are fighting for nothing less than your right to your own self. 

And it is in that spirit that I offer these words for those seeking a path to use the various legal tools strewn around the landscape, in this case, the religious exemptions rooted in the Civil Right Act of 1964's protection from discrimination on religious and other grounds. 

As always, I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. It is simply an expression of ethical principle, which may or may not be respected by powers and laws. Ultimately, the degree to which law and ethical  justice diverges is a fascinating metric of the amount of injustice that system generates. 

Without further adieu, and in the hopes of utility:

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In light of title VII of the Civil rights act of 1964 and various case law that followed it, the federal government understands “religion” to be a broad category that encompasses theistic and non theistic beliefs, notably “moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views.” Government publications on the topic go on to inform us that “beliefs are not protected merely because they are strongly held.” Rather, religion typically concerns “ultimate ideas” about “life, purpose, and death.”.

It is in this context that I declare that I have long and sincerely held, as consistently as humanly possible, a set of highly principled ethics that inform my place in the universe and which guide my life’s choices of action. These ethic’s apex values include absolute ownership of the self, one’s labor, the fruits of one’s labor, justly acquired property, justice, and non aggression. This is a comprehensive framework, which can be described and defended in detail.

The relevant consequence of these ethics is that body autonomy is a non-negotiable value. As the absolute and sole owner of this body, I alone hold ultimate judgment as to its integrity and modification, and reject, as a matter of principle, all attempts to coerce its modification.

Furthermore, operating from that framework, a thoughtful analysis of the facts and conditions of our current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, now fading towards endemic, finds that the narrow circumstances under which an individual’s body autonomy can be justifiably violated do not exist under the common circumstances of ordinary conditions. This analysis leads us to the conclusion that efforts outside of very narrow justifiable circumstances which step past persuasion to coercion (specifically including threats of dismissal from employment ) to induce acceptance of the various substances offered as “vaccinations”, or otherwise described as “protective” to be unethical. 

Accordingly, I claim protection from religious discrimination and demand religious exemption and accommodation in this matter in the name of human rights, human decency, and my own agency.

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