The Alabama Legislature is poised to weaken vaccine requirements in the name of religious freedom. A new bill would make it easier for parents and students to claim religious exemptions from vaccinations in public schools and universities. Proponents say it’s about choice and faith. But let’s be clear: this has almost nothing to do with religion—and everything to do with the radicalization of the right.
The bill, which has already passed the state Senate, would eliminate the need for families to go through local health departments to obtain a religious exemption. Instead, they could simply submit a written statement. It would also apply to public universities, allowing students to opt out of vaccination and disease testing based on a religious objection—no explanation required.
The idea that religious conviction is driving this change doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The major religions practiced in Alabama—Christianity in its many forms—have no explicit prohibition on vaccines. There is no Bible verse opposing inoculation. Most religious leaders, including the Pope, prominent rabbis, and respected Islamic scholars, have urged the faithful to get vaccinated for the sake of public health. Christianity, in particular, has long held care for the sick and vulnerable as a moral imperative. If anything, the core teachings of these faiths support vaccines, not reject them.
But vaccines didn’t exist when these faiths were formed. They’re a product of science and modern medicine, not theology. So to claim a religious objection is, in most cases, to retrofit a political belief with spiritual language. This is not faith—it’s ideology masquerading as religion.
What we are witnessing is the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and the breakdown of trust in public institutions. In 2021, after the release of the COVID vaccine, a segment of the American right abandoned traditional conservatism—small government, personal responsibility, family values—and replaced it with a culture of conspiracism and victimhood. The anti-vaccine movement, which had once been on the fringe, became a badge of political identity. It didn’t matter that vaccines had saved millions of lives or that they were recommended by doctors, clergy, and scientists alike. What mattered was opposition.
Now, that sentiment has been institutionalized in this bill. Legislators are no longer simply catering to skeptical parents—they’re codifying suspicion into law. The right’s distrust of science, its resentment of public health measures, and its tendency to reframe personal preference as religious persecution have come together to create a new kind of dogma. It is a faith without scripture, ritual, or deity. But it has believers, and they vote.
This bill is not a defense of freedom; it’s an endorsement of ignorance. It doesn’t protect religious liberty; it undermines public health. It gives political cover to misinformation, wrapped in the language of moral conviction.
If passed, it will almost certainly lead to lower vaccination rates, which could threaten vulnerable populations, from schoolchildren to the elderly. It sends the message that Alabama’s leaders are more interested in appeasing a radical minority than protecting their constituents. And it elevates conspiracy theory to the level of religious truth.
Religious freedom is a constitutional right. But the freedom to avoid science, endanger others, and call it holiness is something else entirely. Alabama should know the difference.