In C.F. v. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, (App. Div., Dec. 23, 2020), a New York state appellate court upheld New York City's 2019 Order requiring everyone residing in certain areas of Brooklyn to be vaccinated against measles. An outbreak of the disease had occurred in that area. The court said in part:
The resolution was within the authority of the Board of Health of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to make and the resolution itself did not violate any right of the petitioners, including their freedom of religion....
The petitioners profess to hold religious beliefs that hold that a healthy body should not assimilate foreign objects, including vaccine ingredients...
While there are recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court which have reflected a greater solicitude to claims for religious exemptions from neutral, generally applicable laws than had previously been articulated (see e.g. Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter & Paul Home v Pennsylvania...; Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc....), those cases were not decided under the First Amendment, but under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993....
The petitioners rely on language from Justice Gorsuch's concurrence in Masterpiece Cakeshop, joined by Justice Alito, which characterized the Smith rule as "controversial in many quarters".... While it is certainly conceivable that the United States Supreme Court may, in some future case, reconsider the standard for addressing a religious objector's challenge to neutrally applicable laws, we are bound to apply the constitutional principles as they now exist, rather than engage in a projection as to what principles may evolve in the future....
We believe that the Free Exercise Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability, even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice.
