Federal judge rejects challenge to Maine's vaccine mandate

A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit challenging Gov. Janet Mills’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Maine's health-care workers that had been criticized as government overreach.

The lawsuit, filed a year ago by the Florida-based Liberty Council, alleged that the vaccine requirement violates state and federal law by requiring vaccinations for health-care workers without allowing a religious exemption for those who object.

The legal challenge was filed on behalf of several medical workers who have religious objections to the vaccines and were either fired or told they can't be employed by state-funded health care groups because they refuse to get jabbed.

But U.S. District Court Judge Levy rejected plaintifs' claims of religious discrimination, saying the requirement "aligns with the state’s interest in protecting public health and, more specifically, medically vulnerable individuals from illness and infectious diseases."

“Reducing the number of unvaccinated healthcare workers at designated healthcare facilities in Maine is rationally related to the government’s interests in limiting the spread of COVID-19, safeguarding Maine’s healthcare capacity, and protecting the lives and health of Maine people,” Levy wrote in the 36-page ruling.

In a statement, Liberty Council vowed to appeal the ruling saying it thinks Levy erred in his decision to reject claims of religious discrimination against health-care workers.

"No one should be faced with this unconscionable choice, especially the health care heroes who have served admirably for the entire duration of COVID-19," Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said. "These health care workers have already suffered irreparable harm by being forced to choose between their jobs and their sincerely held religious beliefs."

Under Mills' executive order, which went into effect last October, health-care workers in the state were required to be fully vaccinated against the virus. The requirement includes health-care workers in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, firefighters, emergency medical service organizations and dental workers.

Only medical exemptions were allowed, not religious or philosophical.

Mills has said the rules are needed to prevent further COVID-19 outbreaks. When she first announced the policy, the state was battling a resurgence of the virus that had contributed to a rise in new infections and hospitalizations.

The vaccine mandate was backed by the Maine Medical Association, the Maine Hospital Association and several other health care groups, which say it will improve public health.

But the Liberty Counsel argues that religious objections to the vaccines must be allowed under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the First Amendment.

"Many people hold sincere religious beliefs against taking any vaccines, or taking those derived from aborted fetal cell lines, or taking those sold by companies that profit from the sale of vaccines and other products derived from abortion," the group said.

The federal judge's decision to toss out the Maine lawsuit follows the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection earlier this year of President Joe Biden's proposed COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal health care workers and a similar mandate for large companies. Maine was not one of the states that joined those legal challenges.