January 14, 2022

DC Agency Proposes Database to Track Employees who File Religious Exemptions

A small government agency in DC is proposing a database to track its employees who file religious objections to COVID-19 vaccines. Many are concerned that this policy could serve as a test for a nationwide policy that would create lists of Americans who object to COVID-19 vaccines.

Such lists would likely contain many pro-life advocates. Many pro-life people object to currently available COVID-19 vaccines on the basis that they were developed and/or manufactured with the use of cell lines harvested from aborted babies.

The Pretrial Services Agency (PSA) for the District of Columbia published its proposal in the Federal Register on Tuesday. It would create an “Employee Religious Exception Request Information System.”

According to the proposal, “This system of records maintains personal religious information collected in response to religious accommodation requests for religious exception from the federally mandated vaccination requirement in the context of a public health emergency or similar health and safety incident, such as a pandemic, epidemic, natural disaster or national or regional emergency.”

The proposal further reads, “The system of records will assist the Agency in the collection, storing, dissemination, and disposal of employee religious exemption request information collected and maintained by the Agency.”

Sarah Parshall Perry and GianCarlo Canaparo, legal fellows for The Heritage Foundation, theorized in an article for the Daily Signal that “Likely, the Biden administration is using it to stealth test a policy it intends to roll out across the whole government.”