(LifeSiteNews) — The mother of a four-year-old recently won a temporary victory against forced vaccination and in favor of religious liberty.
Miranda Guzman, along with two other parents, were granted a temporary injunction against forced vaccination of their children in order for them to attend schools in Raleigh County, West Va.
On Thursday, a state judge ruled in favor of Guzman and the other parents. Guzman “maintains profound religious objections to injecting her four-year-old child, A.G., with the vaccinations required,” the lawsuit stated, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.
The ruling is limited to just these parents, according to West Virginia Watch. However, it opens the door for other parents who object to the vaccine policy.
“Circuit Judge Michael Froble ruled that the state’s mandatory school vaccine law is invalid without a religious exemption to the law,” West Virginia Watch reported. “If there were any question, he said, the state’s Equal Protection for Religion Act of 2023 makes it clear the law should make exceptions for religious beliefs.”
“The court finds that only requiring school kids in the public school to have vaccinations, but not requiring adults and other people and having learning pods and having athletic activities that does occur really diminishes any kind of argument that compelling state interest in only making sure that children in the public school or attending public schools are receiving their mandatory vaccinations, and that they are disregarding their rights for exercising their religion,” Froble wrote in his ruling.
There could be a hearing in the next two weeks on a permanent injunction, West Virginia Watch reported.
The case pitted Governor Patrick Morrisey and the state Department of Health against individual school districts. Gov. Morrisey says that the 2023 Equal Protection for Religion Act requires schools to provide exemptions. The school districts and board officials argue that such a provision is not spelled out in the law. A proposal to enshrine those specific exemptions into law did not pass the legislature this year.
Governor Morrisey celebrated the ruling.
“No family should be forced to choose between their faith and their children’s education, which is exactly what the unelected bureaucrats on the State Board of Education are attempting to force West Virginians to do,” Morrisey stated. “My administration will continue to grant religious exemptions to compulsory vaccine requirements and uphold West Virginia’s Equal Protection for Religion Act until this case is fully settled.”
West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty said the ruling is going to confuse school boards.
“For our counties that are now scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do, the department, as we speak, is working on putting out a statement to all 55 counties as well as the press, and we’ll have that by the close of business today,” Hardesty said on Thursday.
That statement referenced the “claims of religious objections” by parents.
The board stated:
This court’s ruling was based on the families’ claims of religious objections.
While the West Virginia Board of Education is disappointed by the ruling, members of the board will decide next steps in the near future. This injunction is limited in scope and applies only to those named in this lawsuit. It will have no impact on other students in Raleigh County or throughout the state.
West Virginia Watch reported that the state ACLU had a related case in a different county “dismissed on procedure grounds.”
Despite its name, the American Civil Liberties Union chapter wanted to force families to get their kids jabbed as a condition of attending school and sued to stop religious exemptions.
“The petition asked the court to compel the state’s Department of Health and Bureau for Public Health to stop complying with the executive order requiring the state to allow religious exemptions for vaccine requirements,” West Virginia Watch reported on July 23.
