Andreatta: Pagan says chickenpox vaccine is against his religion

Ever since a debunked study linked vaccines to autism nearly 20 years ago, misguided parents have abused religious exemptions to avoid immunizing their school-aged children.

The impact has been a weakened herd immunity and increased risk of disease, like the outbreak of measles that swept California in 2015, leading the state to ban religious exemptions.

If New York were looking for another good reason to follow California’s lead, one could have been found on the porch of a North Goodman Street duplex in Rochester on a recent weekday morning.

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There sat Joseph O’Neill and his 9-year-old daughter, Lilith. Most children Lilith’s age would have been in school, which is where she and her father said they would have liked her to be.

But Lilith hasn’t been in school since last November, when the Rochester City School District rejected O’Neill’s objection to her receiving the chickenpox vaccine on religious grounds.

O’Neill, 42, considers himself a Norse pagan. He wears his hair long and has the Norse runes, an ancient Germanic alphabet, tattooed on his left forearm. A silver Mjolnir, the fearsome hammer of Thor, dangles from a chain around his neck.

He may be a pagan, he said, but he’s also a realist, which is why he had Lilith get all the other immunizations required by New York.

“If it’s a matter of life or death, then yeah,” O’Neill said. “But chickenpox? When’s the last time you heard of someone dying of chickenpox?”

Chickenpox is rare today. But when O’Neill was a kid, there were 4 million cases in the United States a year, and only about 100 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

He said his religion calls for natural remedies to illness when possible. Because so few people die of chickenpox, he said, a vaccine for it runs contrary to his religious beliefs.

“The school district is denying my daughter an education based on our religious beliefs,” O’Neill said.

That’s a matter of debate. State law demands schoolchildren be immunized unless they have a medical or religious exemption.

This isn’t a matter of debate: New York is one of 47 states that allow religious exemptions to required immunizations, and what constitutes an exemption is hazy.

Under state law, parents claiming a religious exemption don’t have to prove their faith opposes vaccines, but must provide a written explanation of a “genuine and sincere” religious objection. School officials can accept or reject the explanation.

When nurses at Lilith’s school, School 20, discovered she had not had the varicella vaccine for chickenpox, district officials demanded she get inoculated or claim an exemption.

O’Neill submitted a form letter he found online that read in part, “the practice of vaccination is contrary to our beliefs and would violate our religious principles.” The letter never mentioned Norse paganism or natural remedies.

He recalled that the principal found his explanation adequate. A district lawyer disagreed.

“I have reviewed your request and have determined that it is insufficient to demonstrate that you have sincere and genuine religious beliefs which would support a religious exemption from immunization,” the lawyer wrote him in a letter dated Nov. 10.

Six days later, Lilith was kicked out of school. O’Neill has homeschooled her ever since.

“Who is the school system to say that my beliefs aren’t sincere?” O’Neill asked.

Since O’Neill asked, a school district is no one to judge his beliefs or anyone else’s. But this is what happens when the law empowers public schools to weigh in on matters of faith.

A better question is why the law allows religious exemptions at all.

The First Amendment guarantees one’s right to practice any religion, but its Establishment Clause separates church from state. The latter goes for public schools.

RCSD spokesman Don Starver denied that the district lawyer judged O’Neill’s religion.

“He never said what his religion was, or why his religion opposes (the vaccine),” Starver said. “All you have to do is explain to us what the religion is and what your objection is. … The criterion is pretty loose.”

Allowing religious exemptions puts children at risk and school officials in an awkward spot of deciding which pleas for exemptions are legitimate and which are bogus, usually with no knowledge of the religion held by parents seeking relief.

Religion aside, the science on vaccines is clear: They’re safe and effective. Protecting the health of children trumps religious beliefs guaranteed by the Constitution. That’s why the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld compulsory vaccination laws.

Buy O’Neill’s religious exemption or not. The law simultaneously offers him a loophole and allows school officials to pass judgment on the sincerity of his convictions.

Religion has no place in public schools or matters of public health. Get rid of the exemption.

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at dandreatta@gannett.com.