Religious reasons to avoid vaccination supported warily

A slim majority of American adults support religious exemptions to coronavirus vaccination mandates, but most also say that too many people are using their faith as an excuse to avoid immunization, a new survey found.

The poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core found that 51% of adults favor letting people opt out of vaccination requirements for religious reasons. But 59% say too many people are leaning on faith to request exemptions.

That percentage includes majorities of every major religious group except White evangelical Protestants and other Protestants of color. Sixty percent of people also say there are no valid religious reasons to refuse vaccination.

The findings, released Thursday, reveal the latest public opinion on religious exemptions as companies and state and local governments navigate loaded debates about when to grant the requests. Roughly 40% of Americans are not fully immunized, even though health officials maintain that widespread vaccination is key to ending the pandemic.

“The wide berth allowed for the expression and practice of religions, codified in our Constitution and laws, are bedrock American principles,” institute founder Robert Jones said in a statement announcing the new poll. “But Americans also believe that principles of religious liberty are not absolute but rather should be balanced with the health and well-being of our communities.”

Survey respondents’ support for faith-based exemptions depends on the requests’ specifics. Roughly 40% of Americans say anyone who asks for an exemption should get one, as do 61% of white evangelical Protestants — the only major religious group whose majority took that stance.

About half of adults favor exemptions for people who have supporting documentation from a religious leader, according to the survey of more than 5,700 people. Fifty-five percent support exemptions for people who have refused other vaccines for religious reasons and 57% favor them for members of religious groups with a record of doing so.

Questions of which circumstances should trigger exemptions apply to a relatively small number of Americans. Just 13% of adults say vaccination violates their personal religious beliefs, while 10% say it is opposed by their religion’s teachings.

Of people who have refused coronavirus vaccination, 52% say vaccination goes against their personal religious beliefs while 33% say it is prohibited by their religion’s teachings.

The survey was conducted Oct. 18 through Nov. 9, before the new omicron variant of the coronavirus raised questions about how well the federally approved vaccines will fare and prompted an increase in people seeking booster doses. While leaders of major faith groups have expressed support for immunization, a minority of Americans have leaned on religious-freedom complaints to skirt vaccination.