A Northern California pastor is passing out COVID-19 vaccine religious exemption cards to people who are choosing not to get vaccinated.
Greg Fairrington, pastor of Destiny Christian Church in Rocklin told The Epoch Times he started the process of creating religious exemption cards after receiving calls from his congregation in distress about potentially losing their jobs for not receiving the vaccine.
“People are frightened, we have thousands of emails coming into our church,” Fairrington said. “There’s so many people who are being impacted by these mandates. It’s not just the healthcare workers, but it’s teachers, it’s first responders, and it’s just a ripple effect that people are going to lose their jobs.”
Over the past few weeks, Fairrington has spoken the health care professionals in his congregation who said they were fearful of losing their jobs without a COVID-19 vaccine religious exemption.
“People are desperate right now, and I understand COVID is a very real thing, I’m not diminishing the challenge of that, but people are frightened,” he said. “We are not anti-vaccination, but we are pro-freedom, and a person should get to choose and especially because our First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution protects, freedom of religion and the free exercise of it.”
Over the weekend, Fairrington printed out 3,000 religious exemption cards for those in the congregation believe getting the vaccine would go against their convictions and leave them morally compromised.
While the pastor is unaware of whether the religious exemption will be accepted at establishments, he thinks it will be up to the court to determine if vaccine mandates are an infringement against the freedom of religion.
Fairrington will continue to assist members of the congregation this upcoming weekend, he said.
The effort by Fairrington comes shortly after California introduced a new mandate requiring health care workers and school staff to either receive the COVID-19 vaccine or get tested weekly.
