Washington DC, US
RNS
A new poll reveals most Americans are in favour of offering religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccines, yet express concern that too many people are seeking such exemptions. In the same survey, more than half of those who refuse to get vaccinated say getting the shot goes against their personal faith.
The poll, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core and released Thursday, investigated ongoing debates about COVID-19 vaccines as well as emerging divisions over whether religious exemptions to the shots should even exist.
According to the survey, a small majority (51 per cent) of Americans favour allowing individuals who would otherwise be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine to opt out if it violates their religious beliefs, compared with 47 per cent who oppose such religious exemptions.
The divide, which researchers noted has remained roughly the same since they began surveying on the question earlier this year, yawns wider when respondents are broken out by party: Only 33 per cent of Democrats support religious exemptions to vaccines, whereas most independents (53 per cent) and a broad majority of Republicans (73 per cent) are in favor of them.
Even so, majorities of almost every religious group believe there are no valid religious reasons to refuse a COVID-19 vaccine, including Hispanic Catholics (68 per cent), other Christians (68 per cent), Jewish Americans (67 per cent), Hispanic Protestants (64 per cent), white Catholics (62 per cent), members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (60 per cent), Black Protestants (59 per cent), white mainline Protestants (56 per cent) and other Protestants of color (51 per cent).
Religiously unaffiliated Americans were the most likely to say there are no valid religious reasons to refuse the vaccine, at 69 per cent, whereas white evangelical Protestants were the only faith group among whom fewer than half (41 per cent) said the same.
Two groups – white evangelical Protestants and “other Protestants of colour”, a category that includes Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans, among others – were the only major faith groups among whom less than a majority (38 per cent each) agreed that “too many people are using religion as an excuse to avoid COVID-19 vaccination requirements”. Jewish Americans, on the other hand, were the most likely to agree with the statement (72 per cent), followed by Latter-day Saints (68 per cent) and religiously unaffiliated Americans (67 per cent). Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants, white mainline Protestants and Hispanic Protestants all hovered between 63 per cent and 58 per cent.
A majority of Democrats (77 per cent) and Americans overall (59 per cent) also said they believe too many people are using religion as an excuse to avoid COVID-19 vaccines, but Republicans (41 per cent) and Republicans who trust far-right news sources (18 per cent) were notably less likely to agree.
The survey was conducted between 18th October and 9th November, before the discovery of the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus. While a smattering of preliminary research suggests the new strain may produce more mild cases, reports that it may also be more transmissible and at least partially evade protection from two-dose vaccines have spurred a surge in Americans seeking booster doses.
Faith groups and religious leaders have been generally supportive of vaccines overall, and many have assisted with the vaccine rollout by partnering with government leaders to host vaccination drives at their houses of worship. Faith leaders have also actively promoted inoculations across the globe, with rabbis participating in vaccine trials and Pope Francis describing getting the shot as “an act of love”.
Religious outreach appears to be working, according to PRRI’s data. Among Latter-day Saints, 46% said faith-based approaches impacted their decisions to get vaccinated, as did 27 per cent of Black Protestants and 26 per cent of Hispanic Catholics. The numbers were generally even higher among devotees who attend religious services regularly.
Vaccine acceptance has also greatly increased across religious groups since March. For example, Hispanic Protestants leapt from 43 per cent in the spring to 77 per cent by November. White evangelicals also increased, from 45 per cent to 65 per cent, although they are now the religious group with the least amount of vaccine acceptance.
Many religious authorities, meanwhile, have rejected appeals for religious exemptions. Texas pastor Robert Jeffress, one of former President Donald Trump’s faith advisers during his presidency, came out against religious exemptions earlier this year, telling The Associated Press “there is no credible religious argument against the vaccines.”
Several major US Catholic dioceses and archdioceses have taken similar stances.
“There is no basis for a priest to issue a religious exemption to the vaccine,” read a letter sent to priests by the Archdiocese of New York.
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Yet, the PRRI data underscores the faith-fueled vaccine debates that continue among some religious communities. There remains a vocal subset of Americans who express vaccine hesitancy or even outright anti-vaccine sentiment, with many couching their beliefs in a mixture of conspiracy theories and Christian nationalism. The percentage of vaccine refusers has remained roughly stable for many religious groups. This includes white evangelicals, whose vaccine refusal rate has consistently hovered around 25 per cent – the highest of any religious group.
Some conservative activists have actively encouraged people to opt out of various vaccine mandates by asking for a religious exemption. Among their reasons: opposition to pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines using cells believed to have been originally derived from tissue from fetuses aborted decades ago – a common practice used in the creation of many modern medicines.
The debate escalated last month when faith leaders organized by a band of onetime Trump faith advisers sent a letter to US military leaders urging them to allow service members to opt out of mandated COVID-19 vaccination because of their faith.
“We should be rewarding their bravery and the bravery of all our men and women in uniform, by not forcing them to choose between sincere religious convictions and staying in the military,” the letter read in part.
According to the PRRI poll, vaccine refusers are deeply supportive of religious exemptions, with 85 per cent backing them compared with 44 per cent of vaccine-acceptant Americans.
Vaccine refusers were also the most likely to say they agree with the statement that “receiving the COVID-19 vaccination goes against my religious beliefs”, with 52 per cent saying yes.
But the number shifted when the question was changed slightly to emphasize the teachings of their faith: Only 33 per cent said they agreed that “the teachings of my religion prohibit receiving a COVID-19 vaccination.”
The survey was conducted online, reached more than 5,700 total respondents and reports a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.
