Opinion | Infecting People Isn’t a Religious Right - The New York Times

"To halt the spread of [measles], bills in the State Senate and Assembly would prevent parents from claiming that their religious beliefs exempt them from legal requirements that their children be vaccinated before going to school. The American Academy of Pediatrics has made the elimination of such nonmedical exemptions its top priority this year.

The legislation would allow exemptions only if a licensed doctor certified that the immunization was detrimental to the child’s health, as is the case in current law.

Action on these sensible bills has stalled, however, just weeks before legislators leave for the summer —  even as the latest cases of the highly contagious and sometimes fatal disease were diagnosed in New York last week....

More disturbingly, Mr. Gottfried said he and other committee members thought the legislation could violate the First Amendment, echoing one of the anti-vaccine movement’s favored talking points — that beliefs about vaccines are protected by the Constitution. ...

Religious freedom is important to protect, but the courts have ruled it doesn’t apply here. ..."